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BRADDOCK'S MtVEAT. 




With introduction. 



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NEW YORK: ^^^ 
FFINGHAM MATNAED & Co., PuBLISHEES, 



771 Broadway Airb 67 & 69 Ninth Strebt. 




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KELLOGG'S EDITIONS. 

SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. 

Bacb plaB In ©ne IDolume. 

Text Oarefiilly Ezpiirgated for Use in Mixed Classes. 

With Portrait, JVotes, Introduction to STidkespeare's Qrammar, 
Examination Papers^ and Plan of Study. 

(SKLXOTKO.) 

By BRAINERD KELLOGG, A.M., 

Professor of the English Langnage and Literature in the Brooklyn Polytechnic 
Institute, and author of a " Teat-Book on Rhetoric,'^ a " Text-Book on 
English Literature,''^ and one of the authors of Beed di '^ 
Kellogg'' 9 *' Lessons in English.*^ 



The notes have be^n especially i)repared and selected, to meet the 
requirements of School and College Students, from editions by emi- 
nent English scholars. 

"We are confident that teachers who examine these editions will pro- 
neunce them better adapted to the wants of the class-room than any 
others published. These are tlie only American Editions 
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for use in mixed classes. 

Printed from large type, attractively bound In cloth, and sold at 
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The following Plays, each in one volume, are now ready: 



MERCHANT OF VENICE. 

JULIUS CiESAR. 

MACBETH. 

TEMPEST. 

HAMLET. 

KING HENRY V. 

KING LEAR. 



KING HENRY IV., Part I. 

KING HENRY VIII. 

AS YOU LIKE IT. 

KING RICHARD III. 

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S 

PREAM. 
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Mailing price, 30 eenU per copy. Special JPriee to Teachers. 

Full Descriptive Catalogue sent on application. 



HISTOBICAL CLASSIC READINGS-No. 7. 



BRADDOOK'S DEFEAT. 



1755. 



The French and English in America. 

By FRANCIS PARKMAN. 




GENERAL BRADDOCK. 




NEW YORK : 

Effingham Maynaed & Co., Publishers, 

771 Broapway AxND 67 & 69 Ninth Stkeet. 
\ 



Parkmans H^orks. Libiwy Ed if ion. 

The Works of Francis Parkman, as follows : 

France and England in North America. A Series of His 
TORiCAL Narratives. 7 vols. 

Comprising : 

Pioneers of France in the New World. 1 vol. 

The Jesuits in North America. 1 vol. 

La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West. 1 vol. 

The Old llogime in Canada under Louis XIV. 1 vol. 

Count Froutcnac and New France under Louis XIV. 1 vol. 

Montcalm and Wolfe. 2 vols. 

The Conspiracy of Pontiac, and the Indian War after the 
Conquest of Canada. 2 vols. 

The Oregon Tkail : Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Moun- 
tain Life. 1 vol. 

In all, 10 vols. 8vo. With Portraits and Maps. Cloth, $25.00. 



Parkman s IVorks. Popular Edition. 

The above, in 10 vols. 12mo, cloth, in a very attractive style, with maps, 

portraits, etc. $15.00. 

This new edition of Francis Parkman's fascinating Histories, printed 
from the same large type as the octavo edition, has proved very success- 
ful, several large editions having been sold. With the exception of 
" Montcalm and Wolfe," Mr. Parkman's new work, the Popular Edition 
can be supplied only in sets, volumes of the octavo edition alone being 
furnished separately. 



Little, Bro^^, <fc Company, Publishers, Boston. 



Copyright, 1890, by Effingham Maynauo & Co, 



Biographical Notice of the Author. 



Francis Parkman, the son of an esteemed clergyman of the 
same name, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, September 16, 
1823. After completing his college course at Harvard in 1844, 
he studied law for two years, but abandoned it in 1846. He 
travelled in Europe in the latter part of 1843 and the beginning 
of 1844, and in 1846 set out to explore the Rocky Mountains. 

He lived for several months among the Dakota Indians and 
the still wilder and remoter tribes, and incurred hardships and 
privations that made him an invalid. An interesting account of 
this expedition is given in his book TJie Oregon Trail. Mr. 
Parkman next occupied himself with historical composition. 
Familiar with actual Indian life on and beyond the frontier, he 
naturally turned his attention to the many picturesque scenes of 
a similar character in our annals. 

His chief work has been a series of volumes intended to illus- 
trate the rise and fall of the French dominion in America, which 
are distinguished for brilliant style and accurate research. By 
their thoroughness of research, revealing, in many cases, records 
in manuscript hitherto inaccessible ; by their calm and judicious 
judgments, and by their picturesque narratives, these volumes 
have won an acceptance as classics in the department of early 
American history. 

^'The settlement of North America, and its earl\^ conquest by 
the French ; their long and weary battle with the elements and 
the Indians ; their splendid discoveries and disastrous mistakes ; 
the great effort of the Roman Church, under Jesuit leadership, 
to retrieve her losses from the Reformation by the conversion of 



4 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR . 

the red men of America ; the magnificent deeds of heroism and 
glorious acts of martyrdom which accompanied the planting of 
the cross on the St. Lawrence and its tributary lakes, and in the 
far West, constitute the outline of Mr. Parkman^s still unfinished 
work. His works are not the fancy picture-painting of romance, 
but the conscientious retracing of the past, till the wild scenes 
of the forest throb and thrill with life. Their value consists in 
fidelity to nature and actual facts, and in tracing out the charac- 
teristics of the aborigines, and their contact with the first civil- 
ization of America. 

They touch the very springs of our national life. They show 
the reason why the red man has succumbed to his white brother, 
and they illustrate the struggle between liberty and absolutism. 
Thus, though dealing with events of two centuries ago, and de- 
scribing how our earliest institutions were born out of the neces- 
sities of the hour, they record the first beginnings of life where 
now many millions of busy feet tread in the paths of industry, 
and where strong nations have entered upon the fruits of their 
labor, who took their lives in their hands to convert the wily 
Indian, to discover a new pathway to China, or to fill their 
coffers from fabulous mines of treasure. It is a noticeable fact 
that two motives led to all the discoveries and early settlements 
in this country out of Xew England — the greed of gold and the 
passion for converts. What Mr. Parkman calls *'the grand 
crisis of Canadian history," the English conquest had a much 
wider application. 

^'England imposed, by the sword, on reluctant Canada, the 
boon of national and ordered liberty. Through centuries of 
striving she had advanced from stage to stage of progress, 
deliberate and calm, never breaking with her past, but making 
each fresh gain the basis of a new success, enlarging popular 
liberties while bating nothing of that heiglit and force of indi- 
vidual development which is the brain and heart of civiliza- 
tion ; and now, through a hard earned victory, she taught the 
conquered colony to share the blessings she had won. A happier 



mo GRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AXITBOU . 5 

calamity never befell a people than the conquest of Canada by 
British arms/^ 

What England did for Canada she has done for the United 
States everywhere, and this first contact of France, and then 
of England with the savage life of America, it has been Mr. 
Parkman's good fortune to describe. While we are reading an 
interesting story we are tracing out the rude hamlet of the fore- 
fathers ; and the pioneer, the trapper, the priest, and the fur- 
trader lead in the march of civilization. Though the stories of 
these pioneers in conquest and religion seem already remote and 
legendary in face of the occupation of the land they once 
held by a present civilization, and though the trapper and the 
Indian are now shorn of their pristine glory and will soon be- 
come the relics of a by-gone age, the volumes of Mr. Parkman 
can never grow old in interest. They contain too much which 
is inwrought with our very life to become obsolete, and they are 
so largely the history of the first era of civilization in America, 
that, though the fascination and charm of legendary story are 
felt on every page, they can never pass into the list of old 
romance. Mr. Paikman has vicited France several times to ex- 
amine the French archives in connection with his historical 
labors. 

His publications in his chosen field are: '' The Oregon Trail;" 
"The Conspiracy of Pontiac;'' '^^ Pioneers of France in the New 
World;" ''^Jesuits in North America;" *■• Discovery of the Great 
West;" "The Old Regime in Canada;" "Count Frontenac and 
New France under Louis XIV.," and " Montcalm and Wolfe.'' 
Mr. Parkman is at the present time (1888) engaged on another 
volume which is designed to complete the series. 



FRENCH & INDIAN 
WAR 

AND THE 

REVOLUTIOX. 



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IKTPwODUCTlOK, 



It is the nature of great events to obscure the great events 
that came before them. The Seven Years War' in Europe is 
seen but dimly through revohitionary convulsions and Napoleonic 
tempests ; and the same contest in America is half lost to sight 
behind the storm-cloud of the War of Independence. Few at 
this day see the momentous issues involved in it, or the great- 
ness of the danger that it averted. The strife that armed all 
the civilized world began here. ** Such was the complication of 
political interests/^ says Voltaire, ^^ that a cannon-shot fired in 
America could give the signal that set Europe in a blaze." Not 
quite. It was not a cannon-shot, but a volley from the hunting- 
pieces of a few backwoodsmen, commanded by a Virginian youth, 
George Washington.'^ 

To us of this day, the result of the American part of the war 
seems a foregone conclusion. It was far from being so ; and very 
far from being so regarded by our forefathers. The numerical 
superiority^ of the British colonies was offset by organic w^eak- 
nesses fatal to vigorous and united action. Nor at the outset 
did they, or the mother-country, aim at conquei'ing Canada, but 

l.^The Seven Years' War. — " The ing this struggle France lost Canada 



treaty of Aix-la Chapelle gave a brief 
rest to Europe, which was broken 
by the Seven Years' War in 1756, 
brought on by a coalition of France 
and several of the other European 
states, against Frederick the Great 
of Prussia. Great Britain and France 
quarreled about their colonial pos- 
sessions in North America, and dur- 



and some of her West Indian posses- 
sions." — Anderson's New General 
History. 

2. See page 27. 

3. At this time there were sixty 
thousand French settlers proposing 
to imprison on the sea-coast more 
than a million Englishmen. 



8 



INTRODUCTION. 



only at pushing back lier boundaries. Canada — using the name 
in its restricted sense — was a position of great strength ; and even 
when her dependencies were overcome, she could hold her own 
against forces far superior. Armies could reach her only by three 
routes, — the Lower St. Lawrence on the east, the Upper St. 
Lawrence on the west, and Lake Champlain on the south. The 
first access was guarded by a fortress almost impregnable by 
nature, and the second by a long chain of dangerous rapids ;' 
while the third offered a series of points easy to defend. 
The French claimed all America, from the Alleghanies to 
the Rocky Mountains, and from Mexico and Florida to the North 
Pole, except only the ill-defined possessions of the English on the 
borders of Hudson Bay; and to these vast regions, with adjacent 
islands, they gave the general name of New France. They 
controlled the highways of the continent, for they held its two 
great rivers. First, they had seized the St. Lawrence, and then 
planted themselves at the mouth of the Mississippi. Canada at 
the north, and Louisiana at the south, were the keys of a bound- 
less interior, rich with incalculable possibilities. The English 
colonies, ranged along the Atlantic coast, had no royal road to 
the great inland, and were, in a manner, shut between the mount- 
ains and the sea. The possession of Canada was a question of 
diplomacy as well as of war. If England conquered her, she 
might restore her, as she had lately restored Cape Breton.^ She 
had an interest in keeping France alive on the American conti- 
nent. More than one clear eye saw, at the middle of the last 
century, that the subjection of Canada would lead to a revolt of 



4. Quebec. Rapids of Lachine 
and others. Crown Point and Ti- 
conderoga. 

5. Cape Breton.— In 1713,England, 
in tlie reign of Queen Anne, waged 
war against Louis XIV. By the 
treaty of Utrecht England possessed 
herself of Acadia. Cape Breton, an 
island adjoining Acadia, was suf- 



fered to remain a French possession; 
and here France hastened, at vast 
expense, to build and fortify Louis- 
burg for the pr ction of her Amer- 
ican trade. ''It^ was called "The 
Gibraltar of America." In 1758 it 
was permanently occupied by the 
British. 



TMTATP 
SHOWING THE LOCATION 

- or SOME OF THE 

MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS 

OF THE 

FRENCH 8t INDIAN WAR 

Xorfc 




20 40 60 SO 100 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

the British colonies. So long as an active and enterprising 
enemy threatened their borders, they could not break with the 
mother-country, because they needed her help. And if the arms 
of France had prospered in the other hemisphere ; if she had 
gained in Europe or Asia territories with which to buy back 
what she had lost in America, — then, in all likelihood, Canada 
would have passed again into her hands. 

The most momentous and far-reaching question ever brought 
to issue on this continent was : Shall France remain here, or 
shall she not ? If, by diplomacy or war, she had preserved but 
the half, or less than the half, of her American possessions, then 
a barrier would have been set to the spread of the English- 
speaking races ; there would have been no Revolutionary War ; 
and for a long time, at least, no independence. It was not a 
question of scanty populations strung along the banks of the St. 
Lawrence ; it was — or under a government of any worth it would 
have been — a question of the armies and generals of France. 

The Seven Years' War made England what she is. It crippled 
the commerce of her rival, ruined France in two continents, 
and blighted her as a colonial power. It gave England the con- 
trol of the seas and the mastery of North America and India, 
made her the first of commercial nations, and prepared that 
vast colonial system that has planted new Englands in every 
qiiarter of the globe. And while it made England what she is, 
it supplied to the United States the indispensable condition of 
their greatness, if not of their national existence. 



The following account of Braddock's Defeat has been selected from 
Montcalm and Wolfe (short connecting passages being taken from The 
Conspiracy of Pontine), with the full permission of its distinguished author. 
The size of this book compels the occasional omission of what may be 
considered not strictly essential to the narrative. 

In giving this choice extract from Mr. Parkman's writings, it is ex- 
pected to create in the mind of the young reader no more than an appetite 
for the author's complete works, which are so conspicuous among the writ- 
ings of our foremost historians, and whicli should have a place in every 
school library. 



'Braddock's Defeat, 



CHAPTER I. 

The America:?^ Combatai^ts. 

1700—1755. 

French America had two heads, — one among the snows of 
Canada, and one among the canebrakes of Louisiana ; one 
communicating with the world through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 
and the other through the Gulf of Mexico. These vital points 
were feebly connected by a chain of military posts, — slender, and 
often interrupted, — circling through the wilderness nearly three 
thousand miles. Midway between Canada and Louisiana lay 
the valley of the Ohio. If the English should seize it, they 
would sever the chain of posts, and cut French America asunder. 
If the French held it, and entrenched themselves well along its 
eastern limits, they would shut their rivals between the Allegha- 
nies and the sea, control all the tribes of the West, and turn 
them, in case of war, against the English borders, — a frightful 
and insupportable scourge. 

Canada lay ensconced behind rocks and forests. All along 
her southern boundaries, between her and her English foes, lay 
a broad tract of wilderness, shaggy with primeval woods. 
Innumerable streams gurgled beneath their shadows ; innumer- 
able lakes gleamed in the fiery sunsets ; innumerable mountains 
bared their rocky foreheads to the wind. These wastes were 
ranged by her savage allies ; and no enemy could steal upon her 
unawares. Through the midst of them stretched Lake Cham- 
I plain, pointing straight to the heart of the British settlements,— 



12 



BRADD OCR'S DEFEAT. 



a Avatery thoroughfare of mutual attack, and the only approach by 
which, without a long detour by wilderness or sea, a hostile army 
could come within striking distance of the colony. The French 
advanced post of Fort Frederic, called Crown Point' by the Eng- 
lish, barred the narrows of the lake, which thence spread north- 
ward to the portals of Canada guarded by Fort St. Jean (mn- 
jttfi).'' Southwestward, some fourteen hundred miles as a bird 
flies, and twice as far by the practicable routes of travel, was 
Louisiana, the second of the two heads of New France ; while be- 
tween lay the realms of solitude where the Mississippi rolled its 
sullen' tide, and the Ohio wound its belt of silver through the 
verdant woodlands. 

To whom belonged this world of prairies and forests ? France 
claimed it by right of discovery and occupation. It was her 
explorers who, after De Soto,' first set foot on it. The question 
of right, it is true, mattered little ; for, right or wrong, neither 
claimant would yield her pretensions so long as she had strength 
to uphold them ; yet one point is worth a moment's notice. 
The French had established an excellent system in the distribu- 
tion of their American lands. Whoever received a grant from 
the Crown was required to improve it, and this within reasonable 
time. If he did not, the land ceased to be his, and was given to 



1. Crown Point. — A strong fortress 
on the western shore of Lake Cham- 
phiin. The scene of many battles 
between the French and English, 
and hiter between the English and 
American forces. See map. 

2. Fort St. Jean. — A fortress at the 
northern extremity of Lake Cham- 
plain. See map. 

3. Sullen Tide —The water of the 
Mississippi, below the mouth of 
the Mis.souri, is very muddy. 

4. De Soto, tiie Spanish explorer, 
had served under Pizarjo in Peru. 



In 1539 he led an expedition through 
the forests from Florida and discov- 
ered the Mississippi River. 

For nearly a century and a half 
after this time no permanent settle- 
ment was made there. In 1680, La 
Salle, a French explorer, "traversed 
the 3Iississippi from the Illinois 
River to the Gulf, lie claimed the 
enormous region from the Allegha- 
ny ^Mountains to the Pacific, from 
the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexi- 
co, as the possession of the French 
king." 



BBADDOCK^S DEFEAT. 



13 



another more able or industrious. An international extension of 
lier own principle would have destroyed the pretensions of 
France to all the countries of the West. She had called them 
hers for three fourths of a century, and they were still a howling 
waste, yielding nothing to civilization but beaver-skins, with here 
and there a fort, trading-post, or mission, and three or four puny 
hamlets by the Mississip})i and the Detroit. We have seen how 
she might have made for herself an indisputable title, and 
peopled the solitudes with a host to maintain it. She would 
not ; others were at hand who both would and could ; and the 
late claimant, disinherited and forlorn, would soon be left to 
count the cost of her bigotry. ' 

The thirteen British colonies were alike, insomuch as they all 
had representative governments, and a basis of English law. 
But the differences among them were great. Some were purely 
English ; others were made up of various races, though the 
Anglo Saxon was always predominant. Some had one prevailing 
religious creed ; others had many creeds. Some had charters, 
and some had not. In most cases the governor was appointed 
by the Crown ; in Pennsylvania and Maryland he was appointed 
by a feudal proprietor," and in Connecticut and Rhode Island 
he wa^ chosen by the people. The differences of disposition and 
character were still greater than those of form. 

The four northern* colonies, known collectively as New Eng- 
land, were an exception to the general rule of diversity. The 
smallest, Rhode Island, had features all its own ; but the rest 
were substantially one in nature and origin. The principal 
among them, Massachusetts, may serve as the type of all. It 



5. Toward the close of her do- 
minion in Canada, France expended 
about one million sterling on her 
unprofitable colony, mainly in build- 
ing forts along the enormous line 
from Quebec to Kew Orleans, in 



order to shut in the English colo- 
nists. 

6. Feudal Proprietor — One hold- 
ing the title to large territories of 
land in his own right. 



14 



BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



was a mosaic of little village republics, firmly cemented together, 
and formed into a single body politic through representatives 
sent to the *^ General Court " * at Boston. Yet there were no 
distinct class-lines, and popular power, like popular education, 
was widely diffused. Practically Massachusetts was almost 
indepen'^ent of the mother-country. Its people were purely Eng- 
lish, of sound yeoman stock, with an abundant leaven drawn 
from the best of the Puritan gentry; but their original character 
had been somewhat modified by changed conditions of life. A 
harsh and exacting creed, with its stiff formalism and its prohibi- 
tion of wholesome recreation ; excess in the pursuit of gain ; — 
the struggle for existence on a hard and barren soil ; and the 
isolation of a narrow village life, — joined to produce, in the 
meaner sort, qualities which were unpleasant, and sometimes 
repulsive. Puritanism was not an unmixed blessing. Its view 
of human nature was dark, and its attitude towards it one of 
repression. It strove to crush out not only what is evil, but 
much that is innocent and salutary. 

The New England colonies abounded in high examples of public 
and private virtue, though not always under the most prepossessing 
forms. They were conspicuous, moreover, for intellectual activity, 
and were by no means without intellectual eminence. Massachu- 
setts had produced at least two men whose fame had crossed tlie sea, 
— Edwards,^ who out of the grim theology of Calvin mounted to 
sublime heights of mystical speculation ; and Franklin,*' famous 
already by his discoveries in electricity. On the other hand. 



7. Jonathan Edwards, the most 
eminent divine of bis time, achieved 
a European reputation, and his 
powerful reasoning ^^as renowned 
wherever the doctrines of Calvin 
were revered. 

8. Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790. 



—The most eminent man of his 
time. Philosopher, scientist, states- 
man, pliilanthropist. " Of the four 
greatest men that this country has 
produced he stands first in the order 
of time — Franklin, Washington, 
Webster, Lincoln." 



* General Court — The legislature : so called from having had, in colo- 
nial days, judicial power. "The General Court of Massachusetts " is a 
name yet given to the legislature. 



BR ADD OCR'S Dl^PEAT. 



15 



there were few genuine New Englanders who, however personally 
modest, could divest themselves of the notion that they belonged 
to a people in an especial manner the object of divine approval ; 
and this self-righteousness, along with certain other traits, failed 
to commend the Puritan colonies to the favor of their fellows. 
Then, as now. New England was best known to her neighbors 
by her worst side. 

In one point, however, she found general applause. She was 
regarded as the most military among the British colonies. This 
reputation was well founded, and is easily explained. More than 
all the rest, she lay open to attack. The long waving line of the 
New England border, with its lonely hamlets and scattered 
farms, extended from the Kennebec to beyond the Connecticut, 
and was everywhere vulnerable to the guns and tomahawks of 
the neighboring French and their savage allies. The colonies 
towards the south had thus far been safe from danger. New 
York alone was within striking distance of the Canadian war- 
parties. That province then consisted of a line of settlements 
up the Hudson and the Mohawk, and was little exposed to attack 
except at its northern iend, which was guarded by the fortified 
town of Albany, with its outlying posts, and by the friendly and 
warlike Mohawks, whose "castles'^'' were close at hand. 

Thus New England had borne the heaviest brunt of the preced- 
ing wars, not only by the forest, but also by the sea; for the French 
of Acadia and Cape Breton confronted her coast, and she was 
often at blows with them. Fighting had been a necessity with 
her, and she had met the emergency after a method extremely 
defective, but the best that circumstances would permit. Having 
no trained officers and no disciplined soldiers, and being too poor 
to maintain either, she borrowed her warriors from the workshop 
and the plow, and officered them with lawyers, merchants, 
mechanics, or farmers. To Compare them with good regular 
troops would be folly ; but they did, on the whole, better than 



9. Castles.— Indian towns, and 
possibly referring to some of the 



Indian fortifications discovered in 
this vicinity. 



16 



BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



could have been expected, and in the last war achieved the brill- 
iant success of the capture of Louisburg/" This exploit, due 
partly to native hardihood and partly to good luck, greatly 
enhanced the military repute of New England, or rather was 
one of the chief sources of it. 

The great colony of Virginia stood in strong contrast to New 
England. In both the population was English ; but the one was 
Puritan with Roundhead' ' traditions, and the other, so far as 
concerned its governing class, Anglican with Cavalier*'' tradi- 
tions. In the one, every man, woman, and child could read and 
write ; in the other. Sir AVilliam Berkeley'^ once thanked God 
that there were no free schools, and no prospect of any for a 
century. The hope had found fruition. The lower classes of 
Virginia were as untaught as the warmest friend of popular ig- 
norance could wish. New England had a native literature more 
than respectable under the circumstances, while Virginia had 
none ; numerous industi ies, while Virginia was all agriculture, 
with but a single crop'*; a homogeneous society and a democratic 



10. Louisburg. — In 1744 France 
and England went to war again, and 
the colonists were drawn into it. 
Gov. Shirley of Mass. formed an 
extensive plan for the capture of the 
great stronghold of Louisburg, in 
Cape Breton, by NewEngland, aided 
by the English fleet, and this was 
accomplished. At. the close of the 
war (1748), Louisburg was returned 
to the French, and it remained in 
her possession for ten years more 
and then passed finally away from 
her, along with all the rest of her 
American territory. 

11. Roundhead. — A derisive name 
given to the Puritans because of 
their custom of wearing their hair 
cropped short. 

13. Cavalier or royalist. — This 



class included the greater part of 
the nobility, clergy, and landed 
gentry. 

13. Sir Wm. Berkeley was first ap- 
pointed governor of Va. in 1641. 
He was a strong supporter of Charles 
I. in the civil war, and maintained 
the royal authority in Va. until the 
death of the king. In 1659 he, a 
second time, became governor of 
Va. lie died in England in 1677. 

14. Tobacco — There has never 
been a community, probably, in 
which any one great staple has 
played such a part as in Virginia. 
Tobacco founded the colony and 
gave it wealth. It was the currency 
of Virginia. The clergy were paid 
and taxes were levied by the bur- 
gesses in tobacco. 



BRADDOCK'H DEFEAT. 



17 



spirit, while her rival was an aristocracy. Virginian society was 
distinctly stratified. On the lowest level were the negro slaves, 
nearly as numerous as ail the rest together ; next, the indented 
servants and the poor whites, of low origin, good-humored, but 
boisterous, and sometimes vicious ; next, the small and despised 
class of tradesmen and mechanics ; next, the farmers and lesser 
planters, who were mainly of good English stock, and who 
merged insensibly into the ruling class of the great landowners. 
It was these last who represented the colony and made the laws. 
They may be described as English country squires transplanted 
to a warm climate and turned slave-masters. They sustained 
their position by entails'', and constantly undermined it by the 
reckless profusion which ruined them at last. 

Many of them were well born, with an immense pride of descent, 
increased by the habit of domination. Indolent and energetic by 
turns; rich in natural gifts, and often poor in book-learning, though 
some, in the lack of good teaching at home, had been bred in the 
English universities ; high-spirited, generous to a fault ; keeping 
open house in their capacious mansions, among vast tobacco-fields 
and toiling negroes, and living in a rude pomp where the fash- 
ions of St. James'^ were somewhat oddly grafted on the rough- 
ness of the plantation, — what they wanted in schooling was sup- 
plied by an education which books alone would have been impo- 
tent to give, the education which came with the possession and 
exercise of political power, and the sense of a position to main- 
tain, joined to a bold spirit of independence and a patriotic 
attachment to the Old Dominion. They were few in number ; 
they raced, gambled, drank, and swore ; they did everything 
that in Puritan eyes was most reprehensible ; and in the day of 



15. Entails. — To settle the descent 
of an estate so that it cannot be be- 
queathed at pleasure. This system 
formed the surest foundation of a 
strong and permanent aristocracy. 
It fell duriuff the Revolutiou be- 



neath the attacks headed by Jeffer- 
son. 

16. St. James. — The Court of St. 
James, the royal residence. In this 
connection the term signifies "the 
fashions of the English nobility." 



18 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 

need they gave the United Colonies a body of statesmen and ora- 
tors which had no equal on the continent. '^ 

The essential antagonism of Virginia and New England was 
afterwards to become, and to remain for a century, an element of 
the first influence in American history. Each might have learned 
much from the other ; but neither did so till, at last, the strife 
of their contending principles shook the continent. Pennsyl- 
vania differed widely from both. She was a conglomerate of 
creeds and races, — English, Irish, Germans, Dutch and Swedes ; 
Quakers, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Eomanists, Moravians, and 
a variety of nondescript sects. The Quakers prevailed in the 
eastern districts ; quiet, industrious, virtuous, and serenely ob- 
stinate. Virginia and New England had each a strong distinct- 
ive character. Pennsylvania, with her heterogeneous popula- 
tion, had none but that which she owed to the sober neutral 
tints of Quaker existence. A more tln-iving colony there was not 
on the continent. Life, if monotonous, was smooth and con- 
tented. Trade and the arts grew. Philadelphia, next to Bos- 
ton, was the largest town in British America ; and was, more- 
over, the intellectual center of the middle and southern colonies. 

New York had not as yet reached the relative promi- 
nence which her geographical position and inherent strength 
afterwards gave her. The English, joined to the Dutch, the 
original settlers, were the dominant population ; but a half-score 
of other languages were spoken in the province, the chief among 
them being that of the Huguenot French in the southern parts, 
and that of Germans on the Mohawk. In religion, the province 
was divided between the Anglican Church, with government sup- 
port and popular dislike, and numerous dissenting sects, chiefly 
Lutlierans, Independents, Presbyterians, and members of the 
Dutch Iteformed Church. The little city of New York, like its 
great successor, was the most cosmopolitan place on the conti- 
nent, and probably the gayest. It had, in abundance, balls, con- 
certs, theatricals, and evening clubs, with plentiful dances and 

17. In one generation Virginia produced George Washington, John 
Marshall, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and James Madison. 



BRADD OCR'S DEFEAT. 



19 



other amusements for the poorer classes. Thither in the winter 
months came the great hereditary proprietors'' on the Hudson. 
Pennsylvania was feudal in form, and not in spirit ; Virginia in 
spirit, and not in form ; New Engand in neither ; and New 
York largely in both. This social crystallization had, it is true, 
many opponents. In politics, as in religion, there were sliarp 
antagonisms and frequent quarrels. They centered in the city ; 
for in the well-stocked dwellings of the Dutch farmers along 
the Hudson there reigned a tranquil and prosperous routine ; 
and the Dutch border town of Albany had not its like in Amer- 
ica for unruffled conversatism and quaint picturesqueness. 

Of the other colonies, the briefest mention will suffice : New 
Jersey, with its Avholesome population of farmers ; tobacco-grow- 
ing Maryland, which, but for its proprietary government and 
numerous Roman Catholics, might pass for another Virginia, 
inferior in growth, and less decisive in features; Delaware, a 
modest appendage of Pennsylvania; wild and rude North Caro- 
lina ; and, farther on. South Carolina and Georgia, too remote 
from the seat of war to take a noteworthy part in it. The atti- 
tude of these various colonies towards each other is hardly 
conceivable to an American of the present time. They had no 
political tie except a common allegiance to the British Crown. 
Communication between them was difficult and slow, by rough 
roads traced often through primeval forests/' Between some of 
them there was less of sympathy than of jealousy kindled by 
conflicting interests or perpetual disputes concerning boundaries. 

The patriotism of the colonist was bounded by the lines of his 
government, except in the compact and kindred colonies of New 
England, which were socially united, though politically distinct. 
The country of the New Yorker was New York, and the country 
of the Virginian was Virginia. The New England colonies had 
once confederated ; but, kindred as they were, they had loug ago 
dropped apart. At rare intervals, under the pressure of an 



18. Hereditary Proprietors.— The 

descendauts of the proprietors to 
whom had been ceded portions of 



the territory along the Hudson 
River. 

19. Primeval Forests —-S/mwm^r.? 



20 BRADDOOK'S DEFEAT. 

emergency, some of them would try to act in concert ; and, except 
in New England, the results had been most discouraging. Nor 
was it this segregation' ° only that unfitted them for war. They 
were all subject to popular legislatures, through whom alone 
money and men could be raised ; and these elective bodies were 
sometimes factious and selfish, and not always either far-sighted 
or reasonable. Moreover, they were in a state of ceaseless fric- 
tion with their governors, who represented the king, or, what 
was worse, the feudal proprietary. 

These disputes, though varying in intensity, were found 
everywhere except in the two small colonies which chose 
their own governors ; and they were premonitions of the 
movement towards independence which ended in the war of 
Revolution. The occasion of difference mattered little. Ac- 
tive or latent, the quarrel was always present. In New 
York it turned on a question of the governor's salary ; in 
Pennsylvania on the taxation of the proprietary estates ; in 
Virginia on a fee exacted for the issue of land patents. It was 
sure to arise whenever some public crisis gave the representatives 
of the people an opportunity of extorting concessions from the 
representative of the Crown, or gave the representative of the 
Crown an opportunity to gain a point for prerogative. That is 
to say, the time when action was most needed was the time 
chosen for obstructing it. 

In Canada there was no popular legislature to embarrass the 
central power. The people, like an army, obeyed the word of 
command, — a military advantage beyond all price. 

Divided in government ; divided in origin, feelings, and 
principles ; jealous of each other, jealous of the Crown ; tlie 
people at war with the executive, and, by the fermentation of 
internal politics, blinded to an outward danger that seemed remote 
and vague, — such were the conditions under which the British 
colonies drifted into a war that was to decide the fate of the 
continent. 

20. Segregation. — Separation from others. 



BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



21 



CHAPTER II. 

Collision of the Rival CoLOi^iES. 

The people of the northern English colonies had learned to 
regard their Canadian neighbors with the bitterest enmity. To 
the sons of the Puritans, their enemy was doubly odious. They 
hated him as a Frenchman, and they hated him as a Papist. 
Hitherto he had waged his murderous warfare from a distance, 
wasting their settlements with rapid onsets, fierce and transient 
as a summer storm ; but now, with enterprising audacity, he was 
intrenching himself on their very borders. The English hunter, 
in the lonely wilderness of Vermont, as by the warm glow of sun- 
set he piled the spruce boughs for his woodland bed, started as a 
deep, low sound struck faintly on his ear, the evening gun of Fort 
Frederic, booming over lake and forests. The erection of this 
fort, better known among the English as Crown Point, was a 
piece of daring encroachment which justly kindled resentment 
in the northern colonies. But it was not here that the immediate 
occasion of a final rupture was to arise. 

By an article of the treaty of Utrecht' confirmed by that of Aix 
la Chapelle'^ {aJces-laU-slia-jjeV) , Acadia had been ceded to Eng- 
land; but scarcely was the latter treaty signed, when debates sprang 
up touching the limits of the ceded province. Commissioners were 
named on either side to adjust the disjDuted boundary ; but the 
claims of the rival powers proved utterly irreconcilable, and 



1. Treaty of Utrecht. (April 11, 
1713.) — By this treaty France ceded 
to England important possessions in 
the New World, consisting chietiy 
of Acadia, now Nova Scotia. 

2. Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. — A 
treaty of peace between England 



and Frnnce (Oct. 7, 1748). By the 
articles of this treaty Cape Breton 
was given up to the French in 
a compromise for restoring the 
French conquests in the Low Coun- 
tries to the Queen of Hungary. 



22 



BRADUOCK'ti DEFEAT. 



all negotiation was fruitless. Meantime, the French and Eng- 
lish forces in Acadia began to assume a belligerent attitude, and 
indulge their ill blood in mutual aggression and reprisal. ' But 
while this game was played on the coasts on the Atlantic, interests 
of far greater moment were at stake in the west. 

The people of the middle' colonies, placed by their local 
position beyond reach of the French, had heard with great 
composure of the sufferings of their New England brethren, and 
felt little concern at a danger so doubtful and remote. There 
were those among them, however, who with greater foresight had 
been quick to perceive the ambitious projects of the rival nation ; 
and, as early as 1716, Spotswood,^ governor of Virginia, had 
urged the expediency of securing the valley of the Ohio by a series 
of forts and settlements. His proposal was coldly received, and 
his plan 'fell to the ground. The time at length was come when 
the danger was approaching too near to be slighted longer. In 
1748, an association, called the Ohio Company, was formed with 
the view of making settlements in the region beyond the Allegha- 
nies ; and two years later, Gist, the company's surveyor, to the 
great disgust of the Indians, carried chain and compass down the 
Ohio as far as the falls at Louisville. But so dilatory were the 
English, that before any effectual steps were taken, their agile 
enemies appeared upon the scene. 

In the spring of 1753, the middle provinces were startled at 
the tidings that French troops had crossed Lake Erie, fortified 
themselves at the point of Presqu'-Isle," (presk-eel) and pushed 
forward to the northern branches of the Ohio. Upon this. 
Governor Dinwiddle,^ of Virginia, resolved to dispatch a mes- 
sage requiring their removal from territories which he claimed 



3. Reprisal. — That which is re- 
prised or retaken ; especially that 
which is taken from an enemy 
by way of retaliation or indem- 
nity. 

4. Middle Colonies. — Pennsylva- 
nia, Maryland, Virginia. 



5. Alexander Spottswood. — Gov- 
ernor, 1710-1722. 

6. Presqu' Isle. — A strong fort 
was built here on Lake Erie, where 
the city of Erie, Pa., now stands. 

7. Robert Dinwiddle. — Governor, 
1753-1758. 



BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



23 



as belonging to the British crown ; and looking about him for 
the person best qualified to act as messenger, he made choice 
of George Washington, a young man twenty-one years of age, 
adjutant general of the Virginian militia. 

Washington set out for the trading station of the Ohio Com- 
pany on WilFs Creek ; and thence, at the middle of November, 
struck into the wilderness with Christopher Gist as a guide, 
Vanbraam, a Dutchman, as French interpreter, Davison, a 
trader, as Indian interpreter, and four woodsmen as servants. 
They went to the forks of the Ohio, and then down the river 
to Logstown.^ There Washington had various parleys with 
the Indians ; and thence, after vexatious delays, he continued 
his journey towards Fort Le Boeuf,^ {le berf) accompanied by 
the friendly chief called the Half-King and by three of his 
tribesmen. For several days they followed the traders' path, 
pelted with unceasing rain and snow, and came at last to the 
old Indian town of Venango, where French Creek enters the 
Alleghany. Here there was an English trading-house; but the 
French had seized it, raised their flag over it, and. turned it into 
a military outpost. Joncaire'" {zhon-caire) was in command, 
with two subalterns ; and nothing could exceed their civility. 
They invited the strangers to supper ; and, says Washington, 
^nhe wine, as they dosed themselves pretty plentifully with it, 
soon banished the restraint which at first appeared in their con- 
versation, and gave a license to their tongues to reveal their sen- 
timents more freely. They told me that it was their absolute 
design to take possession of the Ohio, and they would do it ; for 
that although they were sensible the English could raise two 
men for their one, yet they knew their motions were too slow 
and dilatory to prevent any undertaking of theirs.^' '' 



8. log-stown. — A small settle- 
ment (in Ohio) on the Ohio River 
not far from Fort Duqnesne, 

9. Fort Le Boeuf and Venang-o.— - 
Locate them on the map. 



10. Joncaire. — The French com- 
mandant at Venango. Here was 
the advanced post of the French. 

11. "They pretend to have an 
undoubted right to the river, from 



24 



BBADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



With all their civility, the French officers did their best to 
entice away Washington^'s Indians ; and it was with extreme 
difficulty that he could persuade them to go with him. Through 
marshes and swamps, forests choked with snow, and drenched 
with incessant rain, they toiled on for four days more, till the 
wooden walls of Fort Le Boeuf ap2:)eared at last, surrounded by 
fields studded thick with stumps, and half-encircled by the chill 
current of French Creek, along the banks of which lay more 
than two hundred canoes, ready to carry troops in the spring. 
Washington describes Legardeur de Saiiit-Pierre {san-peaire) as 
'^an elderly gentleman with much the air of a soldier/^ The 
letter sent him by Dinwiddle expressed astonishment that his 
troops should build forts upon lands " so notoriously known to 
be the i3roperty of the Crown of Great Britain."^ ^'^I must de- 
sire you,^' continued the letter, ^^to acquaint me by whose 
authority and instructions you have lately marched from Canada 
with an armed force, and invaded the King of Great Britain's 
territories. It becomes my duty to require your peaceable de- 
parture ; and that you would forbear prosecuting a purpose so 
interruptive of the harmony and good understanding which His 
Majesty'^ is desirous to continue and cultivate with the Most 
Christian King.'^ I persuade myself you will i-eceive and enter- 
tain Major Washington with the candor and politeness natural 
to your nation ; and it will give me the greatest satisfaction if 
you return him with an answer suitable to my wishes for a very 
long and lasting peace between us."'' 

Saint- Pierre took three days to frame the answer. In it he 
said that he should send Dinwiddle's letter to the Marquis Du- 
quesne and wait his orders ; and that meanwhile he should re- 
main at his post, according to the commands of his general. 



a discovery made by one La Salle, 
sixty years ago ; and the rise of this 
expedition is to prevent our settling 
on the river or waters of it. " — Wash- 
in(jton's Journal, 



12. His Majesty. — George II. 

13. Most Christian King. — Louis 
XV. 



BRADDOCK^S DEFEAT. 25 

'' I made it my particular care/^ so the letter closed, "to receive 
Mr. AVashington with a distinction suitable to your dignity as 
well as his own quality and great merit." No form of courtesy 
had, in fact, been wanting. •'^He appeared to be extremely 
complaisant/'' says Washington, "though he was exerting every 
artifice to set our Indians at variance with us. I saw that every 
stratagem was practiced to win the Half-King to their interest." 
Neither gifts nor brandy v/ere spared ; and it was only by the 
utmost pains that Washington could prevent his red allies from 
staying at the fort, conquered by French blandishments. 

After leaving Venango on his return, he found the horses so 
weak that, to arrive the sooner, he left them and their drivers 
in charge of Vanbraam and pushed forward on foot, accompanied 
by Gist alone. Each was wrapped to the throat in an Indian 
" matchcoat," ^* with a gun in his hand and a pack at his back. 
Passing an old Indian hamlet called Murdering Town, they had an 
adventure which threatened to make good the name. A French 
Indian, whom they met in the forest, fired at them, pretending 
that his gun had gone off by chance. They caught him, and 
Gist would have killed him ; but Washington interposed, and 
they let him go. Then, to escape pursuit from his tribesmen, 
they walked all night and all the next day. This brought them 
to the banks of the Alleghany. 

They hoped to have found it dead frozen ; but it 
was all alive and turbulent, filled with ice sweeping down 
the current. They made a raft, shoved out into the stream, 
and were soon caught hopelessly in the drifting ice. Wash- 
ington, pushing hard with his setting-pole, was jerked into 
the freezing river ; but caught a log of the raft, and dragged 
himself out. By no efforts could they reach the farther bank, 
or regain that which they had left ; but they were driven against 
an island, where they landed, and left the raft to its fate. The 
night was excessively cold, and Gist^s feet and hands were badly 
frost-bitten. In the morning, the ice had set, and the river was 

14. Matchcoat. — A coat made of a coarse kind of woolen cloth. 



2(3 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 

a solid floor. They crossed it, and succeeded in reaching the 
house of a trader, on the Monongahehi. It was the middle of 
January when Washington arrived at Williamsburg and made 
his report to Dinwiddle. 



CHAPTER III. 

The AVar in Europe and America. 

With the first opening of spring (1754), a newly raised com- 
pany of Virginian backwoodsmen, under Captain Trent, has- 
tened across the mountains, and began to build a fort at the 
confluence of the Monongahela and Alleghany, where Pittsburg 
now stands ; when suddenly they found themselves invested by 
a host of Erench and Indians, who, with sixty bateaux^ and 
three hundred canoes, had descended from Le Boeuf and Ve- 
nango. The English were ordered to evacuate the spot ; and, 
being quite niuible to resist, they obeyed the summons, and 
withdrew in great discomfiture towards Virginia. Meanwhile 
Washington, with another party of backwoodsmen, was advanc- 
ing from the borders ; aiul, hearing of Trent's disaster, he re- 
solved to fortify himself on the Monongahela, and hold his 
ground, if possible, until fresh troops could arrive to support 
him. The French sent out a scouting party under M. Jumon- 
ville'^ (zhu-mon-vill), with the design, probably, of watching his 



1. Bateaux.— A light boat, long 
ill proportion to its broadtli, and 
wider iu the middle than at the 
ends. 

2. Jumonville. — "The death of 
Jumonville is one of the tritiing 
events in history which gain from 
accidental circumstances a startling 
dramatic eilect. It reveals AVash- 



ington as the leading figure in a 
petty aifray which was the signal 
for a world-wide coutlict, which, 
opening in a Massachusetts village, 
rolled on for ncarh' half a century, 
involving all civilized nati(ms, and 
closed at last upon the plains of 
WH\or]oo."— Lodge. 



BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



27 



movements ; but, on a dark and stormy night, Washington sur- 
prised them, as they lay lurking in a rocky glen not far from 
his camp, killed the officer, and captured the whole detachment. 
Coolness of Judgment, a profound sense of public duty, and a 
strong self-control, were even then the characteristics of Wash- 
ington ; but he was scarcely twenty-two, was full of military 
ardor, and was vehement and fiery by nature. Yet it is far 
from certain that, even when age and experience had ripened 
him, he would have forborne to act as he did, for there was 
every reason for believing that the designs of the French were 
hostile ; and though by passively waiting the event he would 
have thrown upon them the responsibility of striking the first 
blow, he would have exposed his small party to capture or de- 
struction by giving them time to gain re-enforcements from Fort 
Duquesne {du kane). It was inevitable that the killing of 
Jumonville should be greeted in France by an outcry of real or 
assumed horror ; but the Chevalier de Levis {Ld'vi), second in 
command to Montcalm, probably expresses the true opinion of 
Frenchmen best fitted to judge when he calls it *'a pretended 
assassination." 

Judge it as we may, this obscure skirmish began the war 
that set the world on fire. Learning that the French, 
enraged by this reverse, were about to attack him in great 
force, he thought it prudent to fall back, and retired ac- 
cordingly to a spot called the Great Meadows," where he had 
before thrown up a slight intrenchment. Here he found him- 
self assailed by nine hundred French and Indians. From eleven 
in the morning till eight at night, the backwoodsmen, who were 
half famished from the failure of their stores, maintained a 
stubborn defense, some fighting within the intrenchment, and 
some on the plain without. In the evening, the French sounded 
a parley,' and offered terms. They were accepted, and on the 



3. Great Meadows, — Wide plains 
not far from the junction of the 
Monongahela and Alleghany riv- 
ers. The slight intrenchment was 



named Fort Necessity, from the 
famine that had prevailed during 
its construction. 

4, Parley. — A conference be- 



og BR ADD OCR'S DEFEAT. 

following day Washington and his men retired across the moun- 
tains, leuving the disputed territory in the hands of the French. 

While the rival nations were beginning to quarrel for a prize 
which belonged to neither of them, the unhappy Indians saAV, 
with alarm and amazement, their lands becoming a bone of con- 
tention between rapacious strangers. The first appearance of 
the French on the Ohio excited the wildest fears in the tribes of 
that quarter, among whom were those who, disgusted by the 
encroachments of the Pennsylvanians, had fled to these remote 
retreats to escape the intrusions of the white men Scarcely 
was their fancied asylum gained, when they saw themselves in- 
vaded by a host of armed men from Canada. Thus placed be- 
tween tw^o fires, they knew not which way to turn. There was 
no union in their counsels, and they seemed like a mob of 
bewildered children. Their native jealousy was roused to its 
utmost pitch. Many of them thought that the two white na- 
tions had conspired to destroy them, and then divide their 
lands. " You and the French," said one of them, a few years 
afterwards, to an English emissary, '^ are like the two edges of 
a pair of shears, and we are the cloth which is cut to pieces be- 
tween them." 

The French labored hard to conciliate them, plying them with 
gifts and flatteries, and proclaiming themselves their champions 
against the English. At first, these acts seemed in vain, but 
their effect soon began to declare itself ; and this effect was 
greatly increased by a singular piece of infatuation on the part 
of the proprietors of Pennsylvania. During the summer of 
1754, delegates of the several provinces met at Albany, to con- 
cert measures of defense in the war which now seemed inevi- 
table. It was at this meeting that the memorable plan of a 
union' of the colonies was brought forward ; a plan, the fate of 
w^hich was curious and significant, for the crown rejected it as 



tween enemies ; a hasty and in- 
formal treating between parties pre- 
pared for fight. 



5. This plan of union was drawn 
up by Franklin. 



BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 29 

giving too much power to the people^ and the people as giving 
too much power to the crown. A council was also held with 
the Iroquois ^ (ero-quah), and though they were fouud but luke- 
warm in their attachment to the English, a treaty of friendship 
and alliance was concluded with their deputies. It would have 
been well if the matter had ended here ; but, with ill-timed 
rapacity, the proprietary^ agents of Pennsylvania took advantage 
of this great assemblage of sachems to procure from them the 
grant of extensive tracts, including the lands inhabited by the 
very tribes whom the French were at that moment striving to 
seduce. When they heard that, without their consent, their 
conquerors and tyrants, the Iroquois, had sold the soil from be- 
neath their feet, their indignation was extreme ; and, convinced 
that there was no limit to English encroachment, many of them 
from that hour became fast allies of the French. 

The courts of London and Versailles still maintained a 
diplomatic intercourse, both protesting their earnest wish that 
their conflicting claims might be adjusted by friendly negotia- 
tion ; but while each disclaimed the intention of hostility, both 
were hastening to prepare for war. Early in 1755, an English 
fleet sailed from Cork, having on board two regiments destined 
for Virginia, and commanded by Greneral Braddock ; and soon 
after, a French fleet put to sea from the port of Brest,® freighted 
with munitions of war and a strong body of troops under Baron 
Dieskau," (de-esko). The English fleet gained its destination. 



6. Iroquois. — The most powerful 
combination of Indian nations, and 
so named by the French. 



power of the original proprietor was 
continued to his descendants. This 
form of proprietary government 



7. Proprietary Government. — i caused much dissatisfaction among 



William Peun received from Charles 
II., in 1681, a tract of land named 
in his honor Pennsylvania. By the 
terms of the grant Penn was made 



the people. 

8. Brest. — In France. Locate 
it. 

9. Baron Dieskau. — A distin- 



propi'ietoi', or governor, and was guished French commander. In 
given power to appoint a deputy 
governor to act in his stead. The 



1755 Dieskau was sent in command 
of four thousand troops from Brest, 



30 



BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



and landed its troops in safety. The Frencli were less fortunate. 
Two of their ships became involved in the fogs of the banks of 
Newfoundland ; and when the weather cleared, they found 
themselves under the guns of a superior British force, sent out 
for the express purpose of intercepting them. " Are we at 
peace or war T' demanded the French commander. A broad- 
side from the Englishman soon solved his doubts, and after a 
stout resistance the French struck their colors. 

Thus began that memorable war which, kindling among the 
forests of America, scattered its fires over the kingdoms of 
Europe, and the sultry empire of the Great Mogul ;'" the war 
made glorious by the heroic death of Wolfe/' the victories of 
Frederic,''' and the exploits of Olive ;'^ the war which controlled 
the destinies of America, and was first in the chain of events 
which led on to her Revolution with all its vast and undeveloped 
consequences. On the old battle-ground of Europe, the contest 
bore the same familiar features of violence and horror which 
had marked the strife of former generations — fields plowed by 
the cannon ball, and walls shattered by the exploding mine, 
sacked towns, and blazing suburbs. But in America, war as- 
sumed a new and striking aspect. A wilderness was its sublime 
arena. Army met army under the shadows of primeval woods ; 
their cannon resounded over wastes unknown to civilized man. 
And before the hostile powers could join in battle, endless for- 



France. An English fleet under 
Boscawen was sent out to intercept 
them oir Newfoundland. Dieskau 
landed most of his troops at Louis- 
burg, and later commanded an ex- 
pedition against the British near 
Lake Georii:e. In the battle that 
followed he was mortally wound- 
ed. 

10. Great Mogul. — The rulers of 
India after the 16th century were 
called Moguls. The most famous 



one, Aurungzebe, was called the 
Great Mosrul, 

11. Wolfe, commander of Brit- 
ish, killed at the capture of Quebec, 
Sept. 13, 1759. 

13. Frederick the Great, king of 
Prussia. 

13. Clive. — Lord Clive won a 
series of splendid victories over the 
French in India, achieving the con- 
quest of Bengal. 



BRADD CK 'S DEFEA T. 



31 



ests must be traversed, and morasses passed, and everywhere the 
ax of the pioneer must hew a path for the bayonet of the 
sokiier. 

Before the declaration of war, and before the breaking off of 
negotiations between the courts of France and England, the 
English ministry formed the plan of assailing the French in 
America on all sides at once, and repelling them, by one bold 
push, from all their encroachments. A provincial army w^as to 
advance upon Acadia, a second was to attack Crown Point, and 
a third Niagara ; while the two regiments which had lately ar- 
rived in Virginia under General Braddock, aided by a strong 
body of provincials, were to dislodge the French from their 
newly-built fort of Du Quesne/^ To Braddock was assigned 
the chief command of all the British forces in America ; and a 
person worse fitted for the office couli scarcely have been found. 
His experience had been ample, and none could doubt his cour- 
age ; but he was profligate, arrogant, perverse, and r bigot to 
militar}^ rules. On his first arrival in Virginia, he called to- 
gether the governors of the several provinces, in order to ex- 
plain his instructions and adjust the details of the projected 
operations. 



14. Du Quesne, the governor of 
Canada. The fort was built by the 
Ohio Company ; was captured by 
the French and Indians and com- 



pleted Recaptured later by the 
English, and named Fort Pitt. In 
time it grew to be a town, and is 
now the city of Pittsburg. 



32 BUADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Braddock. 
1755. 

"I HAVE tlie pleasure to aeqiuiint you that General Brad- 
dock came to my house last Sunday night," writes Dinwiddie, 
at the end of February, to Governor Dobbs' of North Carolina. 
Braddock had landed at Hampton' from the ship ^'Centurion/' 
along with young Commodore Keppel, who commanded the 
American squadron. "I am mighty glad/' again writes Din- 
widdie, '^that the General is arrived, wliich I hope will give me 
some ease ; for these twelve months past I have been a perfect 
slave." He conceived golden opinions of his guest. ^^He is, I 
think, a very fine officer, and a sensible, considerate gentleman. 
He and I live in great harmony." 

Had he known him better, he might have praised him less. 
AVilliam Shirley, son of the Governor of Massachusetts, was Brad- 
dock's secretary ; and after an acquaintance of some months 
wrote to his friend Governor Morris : '* AYe have a general most 
judiciously chosen for being disqualified for the service lie is em- 
ployed in in almost every respect. He may be brave for aught 1 
know, and he is honest in pecuniary matters." The astute 
Frankliji. who also had good opportunity of knowing him, says: 
^' This general was, I think, a brave man, and might probably 
have made a good figure in some European war. But he had too 
much self-confidence ; too high an opinion of the validity of reg- 



1. Arthur Dobbs, Governor of 



3. Hampton, Virgiuia, 



BR ADD OK 'S DEFEA T. 



33 



ular troops; too mean a one of both Americans and In- 

dians. " * 

Whatever were his failings, he feared notliing, and his fidel- 
ity and honor in the discharge of public trnsts were never ques- 
tioned. ^^ Desperate in his fortune, brutal in his behavior, 
obstinate in his sentiments," writes Walpole,^ ^Mie was still 
intrepid and capable." He was a veteran iu years and in service, 
having entered the Coldstream Guards as ensign* in 1710. 

The transports bringing the two regiments from Ireland all fF 
arrived safely at Hampton, and were ordered to proceed up the 
Potomac to Alexandria,' where a camp was to be formed. 
Thither, towards the end of March, went Braddock himself, 
along with Keppel and Dinwiddle, in the Governor's coach ; 
while his aide-de-camp, Orme, his secretary, Shirley, and the 
servants of the party followed on horseback. Braddock had 
sent for the elder Shirley and other provincial governors to meet 
him in council ; and on the fourteenth of April they assembled 
in a tent of the newly formed encampment. 

Here was Dinwiddle, who tliought his troubles at an end, and 
saw in the red-coated soldiery the near fruition of his hopes. Here, 
too was his friend and allv, Dobbs of North Carolina; with Morris 
of Pennsylvania ; Sharpe of Maryland, who, having once been a 
soldier, had been made a sort of provisional commander-in-chief 
before the arrival of Braddock ; and the ambitious Delancey of 
New York, who had lately led the opposition against the Gov- 



3. Walpole. — Horace Walpole, 
1717-1797, a writer of some distinc- 
tion. 

4. Ensign. — An officer who 
formerly carried tlie ensign 



or flag of a company or regi- 
ment. 

5. Alexandria, Virginia, on tlie 
Potomac Kiver, a few miles from 
Mount Vernon. 



* " Washington soon appreciated Braddock's character. He found him 
stately and somewhat haughty, exact in matters of military etiquette and 
discipline, positive in giving an opinion, and obstinate in mamtaunng it; 
but of an honorable and generous, though somewhat irrUable nature. - 
Irving s Life of Washington, 



34 



BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



eriior of that province, and now filled the office himself, — a 
position that needed all his manifold adroitness. But, next to 
Braddock, the most noteworthy man present was Sliirley," gov- 
ernor of ^lassachusetts. Now, when more than sixty years old, 
he thirsted for military honors, and delighted in contriving opera- 
tions of war. lie was one of a very few in the colonies who at 
this time entertained the idea of expelling the French from the 
continent, lie and Lawrence, governor of Nova Scotia, had 
concerted an attack on the French fort of Beausejour"; and, 
jointly with others in New England, he had planned the caj^ture 
of Crown Point, the key of Lake Champlain. 

By these two strokes and by fortifying the portage® between the 
Kennebec and the Chaudiere" (sho-de'-air), he thought that the 
northern colonies would be saved from invasion, and placed in a 
position to become themselves invaders. Then, by driving the en- 
emy from Niagara, securing that important pass, and thus cutting 
off thecomnumication between Canada and her interior dependen- 
cies, all the French posts in the West would die of inanition.*" 
In order to commend these schemes to the Home Government, he 
had painted in gloomy colors the dangers that beset the British 
colonies. 

The plans against Crown Point and Beausejour had already 
found the approval of the Home Government and the energetic 



6. Shirley. — The most distiu- 
guisbod of ]\I;issachiisetts colonial 
governors (1741-1757); was made 
commander-iu-chief of all the forces 
in 1756, and commanded the expe- 
dition ac^ainst Fort Niagara. 

7. Beausejour, — A French fort 
at the head of the Bay of Fund}', 
captured by British in 1755. The 
Acadians were dispersed among the 
British colonies. (Head "Evange- 
line.") 



8. Portage. — A narrow tract of 
land between two bodies of naviga- 
ble water, over which merchandise 
and boats are carried. 

9. Kennebec River, flowing south 
through (.Maine) Mass. territory 
into the Atlantic ; and the Chau- 
dicre River, flowing north through 
Canada into the St. Lawrence River. 
Tlie head waters of these two rivers 
were but a few miles apart. 

IQ. Inanition. Starvation. 



BRADDOCICS DEFEAT. 



35 



support of all the New England Colonies. Prepai-ation for them 
was iu full activity ; and it was Avith great difficulty that Shirley 
had disengaged himself from these cares to attend the council at 
Alexandria. He and Dinwiddle stood in the front of opposition 
to French designs. As they both defended the royal prerog- 
ative and were strong advocates of taxation by Parliament, they 
have found scant justice from American writers. Yet the Brit- 
ish colonies owed them a debt of gratitude, and the American 
States owe it still. 

Braddock laid his instructions before the Council, and Shirley 
found them entirely to his mind ; while the General, on his part, 
fully approved the schemes of the Governor. The plan of the 
campaign was settled. The French were to be attacked at four 
points at once. Tiie two British regiments lately arrived were 
to advance on Fort Duquesne ; two new regiments, known as 
Shirley's and PepperelFs, just raised in the provinces, and taken 
into the King's pay, were to reduce N'iagara ; a body of provin- 
cials, from New England, New York, and New Jersey was to 
seize Crown Point ; and another body of New England men to 
capture Beausejour and bring Acadia to complete subjection. 
Braddock himself was to lead the expedition against Fort Du- 
quesne. He asked Shirley, who, though a soldier only in the- 
ory, had held the ranK: of colonel since the last war, to charge 
himself with that against Niagara ; and Shirley eagerly assented. 
The movement on Crown Point was entrusted to Colonel AYilliam 
Johnson,'^ by reason of his influence over the Indians and his 
reputation for energy, capacity, and faithfulness. Lastly, the 
Acadian enterprise was assigned to Lieutenant-Colonel Monck- 
ton, a regular officer of merit. 

To strike this fourfold blow in time of peace was a scheme 



11. William Johnson. — Boru iu 
Ireland, cnme to this country at the 
age of nineteen, (1734) settled in 
the valley of the Mohawk, anel car- 
ried on a prosperous traffic with the 



Indians. He attained the most 
powerful influence over the Indians, 
and was placed in command over 
the colonial troops at the battle of 
Lake George. He died in 1774, 



36 



BRA I)D OCK'S DEFEA T. 



worthy of Newcastle'' and of Cumberland '^ The pretext was 
that the positions to be attacked were all on British soil ; that in 
occupying them the French had been guilty of invasion ; and 
that to expel the invaders would be an act of self-defense. Yet 
in regard to two of these positions^ the French, if they had no 
other right, might at least claim one of prescription.'" Crown 
Point had been twenty-four years in their undisturbed posses- 
sion, while it was three quarters of a century since they first occu- 
pied Niagara ; and, though New York claimed the ground, no 
serious attempt had been made to dislodge them. 

Other matters had now engaged the Council. Braddock, in 
accordance with his instructions, asked the governors to urge 
upon their several assemblies the establishment of a general fund 
for the service of the campaign ; but the governors were all of 
opinion that the assemblies would refuse, — each being resolved 
to keep the control of its money in its own hands ; and all 
present, witli one voice, advised that the colonies should be com- 
pelled by Act of Parliament to contribute in due proportion to 
the support of the war. Braddock next asked if, in the judg- 
ment of the Council, it would not be well to send Colonel John- 
son with full powers to treat with the Five Nations,'^ who had 
been driven to the verge of an outbreak by the misconduct of 
the Dutch Indian commissioners at Albany. The measure was 
cordially approved, as was also another suggestion of the Gen- 
eral, that vessels should be built at Oswego to command Lake 
Ontario. The Council then dissolved. 



12. Newcastle. — A prominent 
member of the British Government. 
Was made Duke of Newcastle in 
1716. 

13. Cumberland. — He was the son 
of (ieorge 11. Had a famous mili- 
tary career. lie defeated the Scotch 
Highlanders at the battle of C'ullo- 
den, and for his cruelty there gained 
the name of The Butcher, 



14. Prescription. — A custom long 
continued till it has the force of 
law. 

15. Five Nations. — The Mohawks, 
Oneidas, Unondagas, Cayugas and 
Senecas. These combined nations 
were called by the French the Iro- 
quois. 



BHADD CK \S DEFEA T. 37 

Shirley hastened back to New England, burdened with the 
preparation for three expeditions and the command of one of 
them. Johnson, who had been in the camp, though not in the 
Council, went back to Albany, provided wath a commission as 
sole superintendent of Indian affairs, and charged, besides, 
with the enterprise against Crown Point ; while an express was 
dispatched to Monckton at Halifax, with orders to set at once to 
his work of capturing Beausejour. 

In regard to Braddock^s part of the campaign, there had been 
a serious error. If, instead of landing in Virginia and moving 
on Fort Duquesne by the long and circuitous route of Will's 
Creek the two regiments had disembarked at Philadelphia and 
marched westward, the way would have been shortened, and 
would have lain through one of the richest and most populous 
districts on the continent, filled with supplies of every kind. In 
Virginia, on the other hand, and in the adjoining province of 
Maryland, wagons, horses, and forage were scarce. The enemies 
of the Administration ascribed this blunder to the influence of 
the Quaker merchant, John Hanbury, whom the Duke of New- 
castle had consulted as a person familiar with American affairs. 
Hanbury, who was a prominent stockholder in the Ohio Com- 
pany, and who traded largely in Virginia, saw it for his interest 
that the troops should pass that way ; and is said to have brought 
the Duke to this opinion. A writer of the time thinks that if 
they had landed in Pennsylvania, forty thousand pounds would 
have been saved in money, and six weeks in time. 

Not only were supplies scarce, but the people showed such un- 
willingness to furnish them, and such apathy in aiding the ex- 
pedition, that even Washington was provoked to declare that 
" they ought to be chastised.'' Many of them thought that the 
alarm about French encroachment was a device of desi^ninff 
politicians ; and they did not awake to a full consciousness of the 
peril till it was forced upon them by a deluge of calamities, pro- 
duced by the purblind folly of their own representatives, who 
instead of frankly promoting the expedition, displayed a per- 
verse and exasperating narrowness which chafed Braddock to 



38 



BHADiJ O VK 'S DEFEA T. 



fury. He praises the New England colonies, and echoes Din- 
widdle's declaration that they have shown a "^^JS-ne martial 
spirit," and he commends Virginia as having done far better 
than her neighbors; but for Pennsylvania he finds no words to 
express his wrath. He knew nothing of the intestine ^^ war be- 
tween proprietaries and people, and hence could see no palliation 
for a conduct which threatened to ruin both the expedition and the 
colony. Everything depended on speed, and speed was impossible ; 
for stores and provisions were not ready, though notice to furnish 
them had been given months before. Contracts broken or dis- 
avowed, want of horses, want of wagons, want of forage, want of 
wholesome food, or sufficient food of any kind, caused such de- 
lay that the report of it reached England, and drew from Wal- 
pole the comment that Braddock was in no hurry to be scalped. 
In reality he was maddened with impatience and vexation. 



CHAPTER V. 



The Service of Franklij^. The March through the 

Forest. 

A powerful ally presently came to his aid in the shape of 
Benjamin Franklin, then postmaster-general of Pennsylvania. 
That sagacious personage, — the sublime of common-sense, about 
equal in his instincts and motives of character to the respectable 



16. Intestine War. — There was 
much complaint in Pennsylvania 
because of the proprietary form of 
government. Part of the land had 
been reserved to Wm. Penn's sons 
and as the colony grew older the 
people became more and more dis- 



contented with the payment of 
rents. There were many disputes 
between the proprietors and the 
people, and during the Kevolution 
the State abolished the rents, pay- 
ing the proprietors $650,000 for 
them. 



SRADDOOK'S I) WE AT. 



3d 



average of the New England that produced him, but gifted with 
a versatile power of brain rarely matched on earth, — was then 
divided between his strong desire to repel a danger of which he 
saw the imminence, and his equally strong antagonism to the 
selfish claims of the Penns, proprietaries of Pennsylvania. This 
last motive had determined his attitude towards their representa- 
tive, the Governor, and led him into an opposition as injurious 
to the militciry good name of the province as it was favorable to 
its political longings. 

In the present case there was no such conflict of in- 
clinations ; he could help Braddock without hurting Penn- 
sylvania. He and his son had visited the camp, and found 
the General waiting restlessly for the report of the agents whom 
he had sent to collect wagons. *^ I stayed with him,^^ says Frank- 
lin, '^several days, and dined with him daily. When I was 
about to depart, the returns of wagons to be obtained were 
brought in, by which it appeared that they amounted only to 
twenty-five, and not all of these were in serviceable condition." 
On this the General and his officers declared that the expedition 
was at an end, and denounced the Ministry for sending them 
into a country void of the means of transportation. Franklin re- 
marked that it was a pity they had not landed in Pennsylvania, 
where almost every farmer had his wagon. Braddock caught 
eagerly at his words, and begged that he would use his influence 
to enable the troops to move. Franklin went back to Pennsyl- 
vania, issued an address to the farmers appealing to their interest 
and their fears, and in a fortnight procured a hundred and fifty 
wagons, with a large number of horses. Braddock, grateful to 
his benefactor, and enraged at everybody else, pronounced him 
"Almost the only instance of ability and honesty I have known 
in these provinces." More wagons and more horses gradually 
arrived, and jit the eleventh hour the march began. 

On the tenth of May Braddock reached Will's Creek,' where 



1. Will's Creek — A small stream 
running into the Potomac River on 
the banks of which was erected the 



Fort Cumberland, a former trading 
station. 



40 BH ADD OCR'S DEFEAT. 

the whole force was now gathered, liaving marched thither by de- 
tachments along the banks of the Potomac. Tliis old trading- 
station of the Ohio Company had been transformed into a mili- 
tary post and named Fort Cumberland. During the past winter 
the independent companies which had failed Washington in his 
need had been at work here to prepare a base of operations for 
Braddock. Their axes had been of more avail than their mus- 
kets. A broad wound had been cut in the bosom of the forest, 
and the murdered oaks and chestnuts turned into rampart, 
barracks, and magazines. Fort Cumberland was an inclosure 
of logs set upright in the ground, pierced with loopholes, and 
armed with ten small cannon. It stood on a rising gi'ound near 
the point where Will's Creek joined the Potomac, and the forest 
girded it like a mighty hedge, or rather like a paling of gaunt 
brown stems upholding a canopy of green. All around spread 
illimitable woods, wrapping hill, valley, and mountain. The 
spot was an oasis in a desert of leaves, — if the name oasis can be 
given to anything so rude and harsh. 

In this rugged area, or *^ clearing, '^ all Braddock's force was now 
assembled, amounting, regulars, provincials, and sailors, to about 
twonty-two hundred men. The two regiments, Halket's and Dun- 
bar's, had been completed by enlistment in Virginia to seven hun- 
dred men each. Of Virginians there were nine companies of fifty 
men, who found no favor in the eyes of Braddock or his officers. To 
Ensign Allen of Halket's regiment was assigned the duty of ** mak- 
ing them as much like soldiers as possible," — that is, of drilling 
them like regulars. The General had little hope of them, and in- 
formed Sir Thomas Robinson that ^Hheir slothful and languid dis- 
position renders them very unfit for military service," — a point on 
wdiich he lived to change liis mind. Thirty sailors, whom Commo- 
dore Keppel had lent him, were more to his liking, and were in fact 
of value in many ways. He had now about six hundred baggage- 
horses, besides those of the artillery, all weakening daily on their 
diet of leaves ; for no grass was to be found. There was great 
show of discipline, and little real order. Braddock's executive 
capacity seems to have been moderate, and his dogged, imperious 



BR ADD OCR'S tfEFEAT. 41 

temper, rasped by disappointments, was in constant irritation. 
*^He looks upon tlie country, I believe," writes Washington, 
''^ as void of honor or honesty. AVe have frequent disputes on 
this head, which are maintained with warmth on both sides, 
especially on his, as he is incapable of arguing without it, or 
giving up any point he asserts, be it ever so incompatible with 
reason or common-sense." 

Braddock's secretary, the younger Shirley, writing to 
his friend Governor Morris, spoke thus irreverently of his 
chief: "As the King said of a neighboring governor of 
yours \_Sliavi)e\ when proposed for the command of the Amer- 
ican forces about a twelvemonth ago, and recommended as 
a very honest man, though not remarkably able, ' a little more 
ability and a little less honesty upon the present occasion might 
serve our turn better.' It is a joke to suppose that secondary 
officers can make amends for the defects of the first ; the main- 
spring must be the mover. As to the others, I don't think we 
have much to boast ; some are insolent and ignorant, others 
capable, but rather aiming at showing their own abilities than 
making a proper use of them. I have a very great love for my 
friend Orme, and think it uncommonly fortunate for our leader 
that he is under the influence of so honest and capable a man ; 
but I wish for the sake of the public he had some more experi- 
ence of business, particularly in America. I am greatly dis- 
gusted at seeing an expedition, so ill-concerted originally in Eng- 
land, so improperly conducted since in America." 

Captain Eobert Orme, of whom Shirley speaks, was aide-de- 
camp to Braddock, and author of a copious and excellent Journal 
of the expedition, now in the British Museum. His portrait, 
painted at full length by Sir Joshua Reynolds,'' hangs in the Na- 
tional Gallery at London. He stands by his horse, a gallant 
young figure, with a face pale, yet rather handsome, booted to 
the knee, his scarlet coat, ample waistcoat, and small three-cor- 

2. Sir Joshua Reynolds, generally placed at the head of the English 
school of painting, was born in England in 1723. His portraits were of 
unsurpassed merit. He died in 1784. 



42 BR ADD OCR'S DEFEA T. 

nered hat all heavy with gold lace. The General had two other 
aides-de-camp. Captain Koger Morris and Colonel George Wash- 
ington, whom he had invited, in terms that do him honor, to 
become one of his military family.* 

It has been said that Bi-addock despised not only provincials, 
bnt Indians. Nevertheless he took some pains to secure their 
aid, and complained that Indian affairs had been so ill-conducted 
by. the provinces that it was hard to gain their confidence. This 
was true ; the tribes had been alienated by gross neglect. Had 
they been protected from injustice and soothed by attentions and 
presents, the Five Nations, DelaAvares, and Shawanoes would 
have been retained as friends. But their complaints had been 
slighted, and every gift begrudged. 

The trader Croghan brought, however, about fifty warriors, 
with as many women and children, to the camp at Fort Cum- 
berland. They were objects of great curiosity to the soldiers, 
who gazed with astonishment on their faces, painted red, yellow, 
and black, their ears slit and hung with pendants, and their 
heads close shaved, except the feathered scalp-lock at the crown. 

* " The dill and stir of warlike preparations disturbed the quiet of Mount 
Vernon. Washington looked down from his rural retreat upon the ships of 
war and transports, as they passed up the Potomac, with the array of arms 
gleaming along their decks. The booming of cannon echoed among his 
groves. Alexandria was but a few miles distant. Occasionally he mounted 
his horse and rode to that place; it was like a garrisoned town, teeming 
with troops, and resounding with the drum and tife. A brilliant campaign 
was about to open under the auspices of an experienced general, and witli 
all the means and appurtenances of European warfare. How different from 
the starveling expeditions he had hitherto been doomed to conduct ! What 
an opportunity to efface the memory of his recent disaster ! All his 
thoughts of rural life were put to tiight. The military part of his character 
was again in the ascendant; his great desire was to join the expedition as a 
volunteer. 

" It was reported to General Braddock. The latter was apprised by Gov- 
ernor Dinwiddle and others, of Washington's personal merits, his knowledge 
of the country, and his experience in frontier service. The consequence 
was a letter from one of Braddock 's aides-de-camp, inviting Washington to 
join his ?>\di1S.."— Irving' s Life of Washington. 



BRAD DOCK'S DEFEAT. 43 

^^In the day," says an officer, " they are in our camp, and in the 
night they go into their own, where they dance and make a 
most horrible noise." 

Braddock received them several times in his tent, ordered the 
guard to salute them, made them speeches, caused cannon to be 
fired and drums and fifes to play in their honor, regaled them 
with rum, and gave them a bullock for a feast ; whereupon, 
being much pleased, they danced a war-dance, described by one 
spectator as ^^ droll and odd, showing how they scalp and fight ;" 
after which, says another, ''^they set up the most horrid song or 
cry tliat ever I heard." These warriors, with a few others, prom- 
ised the General to join him on the march ; but he apparently 
grew tired of them, for a famous chief, called Scarroyaddy, after- 
wards complained: '^^He looked upon us as dogs, and would 
never hear anything that we said to him." Only eight of them ^- 
remained with him to the end. 

Another ally appeared at the camp. This was a personage 
long known in Western fireside story as Captain Jack, the Black 
Hunter, or the Black Rifle. It was said of him that, having been 
a settler on the farthest frontier, in the Valley of the Juniata, he 
returned one evening to his cabin and found it burned to the 
ground by Indians, and the bodies of his wife and children lying 
among the ruins. He vowed undying vengeance, raised a band 
of kindred spirits, dressed and painted like Indians, and became 
the scourge of the red man and the champion of the white. But 
he and his wild crew, useful as they might have been, shocked 
Braddock^s sense of military fitness ; and he received them so 
coldly that they left him. 

It was the tenth of June before the army was well on its 
march. Three hundred axmen led the way, to cut and clear 
the road ; and the long train of packhorses, wagons, and cannon 
toiled on behind, over the stumps, roots, and stones of the nar- 
row track, the regulars and provincials marching in the foi'est 
close on either side. Squads of men were thrown out on the 
flanks, and scouts ranged the woods to guard against surprise ; 



44 BRADD O CK 'S DEFEA T. 

for, vviili nil liis scorn of Indians and Canadians, Braddock did 
not neglect reasonable precautions. 

Thus, foot by foot, they advanced into the waste of lonely 
mountains that divided the streams flowing to the Atlantic from 
those flowing to the Gulf of Mexico, —a realm of forests ancient 
as the world. The road was but twelve feet wide, and the line 
of march often extended four miles. It was like a thin, long 
party-colored snake, red, blue, and brown, trailing slowly through 
the depth of leaves, creeping round inaccessible heights, crawling 
over ridges, moving always in dampness and shadow, by rivulets 
and waterfalls, crags and chasms, gorges and shaggy steeps. In 
glimpses only, through jagged boughs and flickering leaves, did 
this wild primeval world reveal itself, with its dark green mount- 
ains, flecked with the morning mist, and its distant summits 
penciled in dreamy blue. 

The army passed the main Alleghany, Meadow Mountain, and 
Great Savage Mountain, and traversed the funereal pine-forest 
afterwards called the Shades of Death. No attempt was made 
to interrupt their march, though the commandant of Fort 
Duquesne had sent out parties for that purpose. A few French 
and Indians hovered about them, now and then scalping a strag- 
gler or inscribing filthy insults on trees ; while others fell upon 
the border settlements which the advance of the troops had left 
defenceless. Here they were more successful, butchering about 
thirty persons, chiefly women and children. 



BR ADD OK 'S B EFEA T. 45 



CHAPTER VI. 
Fort Duquesj^e. The Crisis Near. 

It was the eighteenth of June before the army reached a place 
called the Little Meadows, less than thirty miles from Fort 
Cumberland. Fever and dysentery among the men, and the 
weakness and worthlessness of many of the horses, joined to the 
extreme difficulty of the road, so retarded them that they could 
move scarcely more than three miles a day. Braddock consulted 
with Washington, who advised him to leave the heavy baggage 
to follow as it could, and push forward with a body of chosen 
troops. 

This counsel was given in view of a report that five hundred 
regulars were on the way to re-enforce Fort Duquesne. It was 
adopted. Colonel Dunbar was left to command the rear division, 
whose powers of movement were now reduced to the lowest 
point. The advance corps, consisting of about twelve hundred 
soldiers, besides officers and drivers, began its march on the nine- 
teenth with such artillery as was thought indispensable, thirty 
wagons, and a large number of packhorses. *^The prospect,'' 
writes Washington to his brother, ''conveyed infinite delight to 
my mind, though I was excessively ill at the time. But this 
prospect was soon clouded, and my hopes brought very low in- 
deed when I found that, instead of pushing on with vigor with- 
out regarding a little rough road, they were halting to level every 
mole-hill, and to erect bridges over every brook, by which means 
we were four days in getting twelve miles. " It was not till the 
seventh of July th^it they neared the mouth of Turtle Creek, a 
stream entering the Monongahela ' about eight miles from the 
French fort. The way was direct and short, but would lead 



1, Monongahela. — Locate this river on the map. 



46 BRADBOCK'S D E FEAT. 

through a difficult country and a defile so peiilous that Braddock 
resolved to ford the Monongahela to avoid this danger, and then 
ford it agahi to reach his destination. 

Fort Duquesne stood on the point of land . where the 
Alleghany and the Monongahela join to form the Ohio, and 
where now stands Pittsburg, with its swarming population, its 
restless industries, the clang of its forges, and chimneys vomiting 
foul smoke into the face of heaven. At that early day a white 
flag fluttering over a cluster of palisades and embankments be- 
tokened the first intrusion of civilized men upon a scene which, a 
few months before, breathed the repose of a virgin wilderness, 
voiceless but for the lapping of waves upon the pebbles, or the 
note of some lonely bird. But now the sleep of ages was broken, 
and bugle and drum told the astonished forest that its doom was 
pronounced and its days numbered. 

The fort was a compact little work, solidly built and strong, 
compared with others on the continent. It was a square of four 
bastions,^ with the water close on two sides, and the other two 
protected by ravelins,^ ditch, glacis," and covered way. The 
ramparts^ on these sides were of squared logs, filled in with 
earth, and ten feet or more thick. The two water sides were 
inclosed by a massive stockade" of upright logs, twelve feet high, 
mortised together and loopholed. The armament consisted of a 
number of small cannon mounted on the bastions. 

A gate and drawbridge on the east side gave access to the 
area within, which was surrounded by barracks for the soldiers, 
officers' quarters, the lodgings of the commandant, a guard- 
house, and a storehouse, all built partly of logs and partly of 



2. Bastions ~A portion of a for- 5. Ramparts— The entire mound 



tress projecting from the main fort. 

3. Ravelins. — A rampart, wall. 
A detached work with two embank- 
ments, 

4. Glacis. — A mass of earth '; rier. A slight fortitication. 
which serves as a parapet to the 
covered way in a fortress. 



or wall which surrounds a fortified 
place. 

6. Stockade.— A line of posts or 
stakes set in the ground as a bar- 



BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 47 

boards. There were no casemates/ and the place was commanded 
by a high woody hill beyond the Monongahela. The forest 
had been cleared away to the distance of more than a musket 
shot from the ramparts, and the stumps were hacked level with 
the ground. Here, just outside the ditch, bark cabins had been 
built for such of the troops and Canadians as could not find 
room within ; and the rest of the open space was covered with 
Indian corn and other crops. 

The garrison consisted of a few companies of the regular 
troops stationed permanently in the colony, and to these were 
added a considerable number of Canadians. Besides the troops 
and Canadians, eight hundred Indian warriors, mustered from 
far and near, had built their wigwams and camp-sheds on the 
open ground, or under the edge of the neighboring woods, — very 
little to the advantage of the young corn. Some were baptized 
savages settled in Canada. The rest were unmitigated heathen. 

The law of the survival of the fittest had wrought on this 
heterogeneous crew through countless generations ; and with the 
primitive Indian, the fittest was the hardiest, fiercest, most 
adroit, and most wily. Baptized and heathen alike, they had 
just enjoyed a diversion greatly to their taste. A young Pennsyl- 
vanian named James Smith, a spirited and intelligent boy of 
eighteen, had been waylaid by three Indians on the western 
borders of the province and led captive to the fort. When the 
party came to the edge of the clearing, his captors, who had 
shot and scalped his companion, raised the scalp-yell ; whereupon 
a din of responsive whoops and firing of guns rose from all the 
Indian camps, and their inmates swarmed out like bees, while 
the French in the fort shot off muskets and cannon to honor the 
occasion. The unfortunate boy, the object of tliis obstreperous 
rejoicing, presently saw a multitude of savages, naked, hideously 
bedaubed with red, blue, black, and brown, and armed with 
sticks or clubs, ranging themselves in two long parallel lines, 

7. Casemates. — Bomb-proof chambers, usually of masonry in -which 
cannon may be placed. 



48 BUADD O CK'S DEFEAT. 

between which he was told tliat he must run, the faster the 
better, as tliey would beat hirn all the way. He ran with his 
best speed, under a shower of blows, and had nearly reached the 
end of the course, when he was knocked down. He tried to rise, 
but was blinded by a handful of sand thrown into his face ; and 
then they beat him till he swooned. On coming to his senses he 
found himself in the fort, with the surgeon opening a vein in 
his arm and a crowd of French and Indians looking on. In a few 
days he was able to walk with the help of a stick ; and, coming 
out from his quarters one morning, he saw a memorable scene. 

Three days before, an Indian had brought the report that the 
Englisli were approaching ; the French were in great excitement 
and alarm ; it was determined to meet the enemy on the march, 
and ambuscade them if possible at the crossing of the Monon- 
gahela, or some other favorable spot. Beaujeu' proposed the 
plan to the Indians, and offered them the war-hatchet ;® but 
they would not take it. ^' Do you want to die, my father, and 
sacrifice us besides T' That night they held a council, and in 
the morning again refused to go. Beaujeu did not despair. '' I 
am determined/^ he exclaimed, *^ to meet the English. What! 
will you let your father go alone ?" The greater part caught fire 
at his words, promised to follow him, and put on their war-paint. 
Beaujeu received the communion, then dressed himself like a 
savage, and joined the clamorous throng. 

Open barrels of gunpowder and bullets were set before 
the gate of the fort, and James Smith, painfully climb- 
ing the rampart with the help of his stick, looked down 
on the warrior rabble as, huddling together, wild with 
excitement, they scooped up the contents to fill their pow- 
der-horns and pouches. Then, band after band, they filed off 
along the forest track that led to the ford of the Monongahela. 



8. Beaujeu.— One of the French 
commanders of Fort Dii Quesne. 

9. War hatchet. — The tomahawk 
used by the American Indians. It 



was originally made of stone, but 
afterwards of iron. Used as a sym- 
bol for declaration of war. 



BR AD DOCK'S DEFEAT. 49 

They numbered six hundred and thirty-seven ; and with them 
went thirty-six French officers and cadets, seventy-two regular 
soldiers, and a hundred and forty-six Canadians, or about nine 
hundred in all. At eight o^clock the tumult was over. The 
broad clearing lay lonely and still, and Contrecoeur, with what 
was left of his garrison, waited in suspense for the issue. 

It was near one o'clock when Braddock crossed the Monon- 
gahela for the second time. If the French made a stand any- 
where, it would be, he thought, at the fording-place ; but 
Lieutenant-Colonel Gage, whom he sent across with a strong 
advance-party, found no enemy, and quietly took possession of the 
farther shore. Then the main body followed. To impose on 
the imagination of the French scouts, who were doubtless on the 
watch, the movement was made with studied regularity and order. 
The sun was cloudless, and the men were inspirited by the pros- 
pect of near triumph. Washington afterwards spoke with ad- 
miration of the spectacle. The music, the banners, the mounted 
officers, the troop of light cavalry, the naval detachment, the 
red-coated regulars, the blue-coated Virginians, the wagons and 
tumbrils,'" cannon, howitzers," and coehorns,'^ the train of pack- 
horses, and the droves of cattle, passed in long procession 
through the rippling shallows, and slowly entered the bordering 
forest. Here, when all were over, a short halt was ordered for 
rest and refreshment. 

Why had not Beaujeu defended the ford ? This was his 
intention in the morning ; but he had been met by obstacles, the 
nature of which is not wholly clear. His Indians, it seems, had 
proved refractory. Three hundred of them left him, went oif in 
another direction, and did not rejoin him till the English had 
crossed the river. Hence perhaps it was that, having left Fort 
Duquesne at eight o'clock, he spent half the day in marching 



10. Tumbrils. — Rough wagons for 
conveying cartridges, and the like. 

11. Howitzers. — A short, light 
cannon. 

4 



12. Coehorns. — A small bronze 
mortar, so named from its inventor, 
Baron Coehoru. 



50 bhaddock's defeat. 

seven miles, and was more than a mile from the fording-place 
when the British reached the eastern shore. The delay, from 
whatever cause arising, cost him the opportunity of laying an 
ambush either at the ford or in the gullies and ravines that 
channeled the forest through which Braddock was now on the 
point of marching. 

Not far from the bank of the river, and close by the British 
line of march, there was a clearing and a deserted house that had 
once belonged to a trader. Washington remembered it well. It 
was here that he found rest and shelter on the winter journey 
homeward from his mission to Fort Le Boeuf.* He was in no 
less need of rest at this moment ; for recent fever had so weakened 
him that he could hardly sit his horse. From the trader's house 
to Fort Duquesne the distance was eight miles by a rough path, 
along which the troops were now beginning to move after their 
halt. It ran inland for a little ; then curved to the left, and 
followed a course parallel to the river along the base of a line of 
steep hills that here bordered the valley. These and all the 
country were buried in dense and heavy forest, choked with 
bushes and the carcasses of fallen trees. 



SH ADDOCK'S DHPK4.T. 5t 

CHAPTER VIL 

The Battle. The Retreat. 

Braddock has been charged with marching blindly into an 
ambuscade ; but it was not so. There was no ambuscade ; and 
had there been one, he would have found it. It is true that he did 
not reconnoitre the woods very far in advance of the head of the 
column ; yet, with this exception, he made elaborate dispositions 
to prevent surprise. Several guides, with six Virginian light 
horsemen, led the way. Tlien, a musket-shot behind, came the 
vanguard; then three hundred soldiers under Gage; then a large 
body of axmen, under Sir John Sinclair, to open the road ; then 
two cannon with tumbrils and tool- wagons ; and lastly the rear- 
guard, closing the line, while flan king-parties ranged the woods 
on both sides. Tliis was the advance-column. 

The main body followed with little or no interval. The 
artillery and wagons moved along the road, and the troops filed 
through the woods close on either hand. Numerous flanking- 
parties were thrown out a hundred yards and more to right and 
left ; while, in the space between them and the marching column, 
the pack horses and cattle, with their drivers, m^de their way 
painfully among the trees and thickets ; since, had they been al- 
lowed to follow the road, the line of march would have been too 
long for mutual support. A body of regulars and provincials 
brought up the rear. 

Gage, with his advance-column, had just passed a wide and 
bushy ravine that crossed, their path, and the van of the main 
column was on the point of entering it, when the guides and light 
horsemen in the front suddenly fell back ; and the engineer, 
Gordon, then engaged in marking out the road, saw a man, 
dressed like an Indian, but wearing the gorget' of an officer. 



1. Gorget. — A pendent, metallic ornament, worn by otlicers when on duty. 



52 :bra dd CK 'S defea t. 

bounding forward along the path. He stopped when he dis- 
covered the head of the cokimn, turned, and waved his hat. 
The forest behind was swarming with French and savages. At 
tlie signal of the officer, who was probably Beaujeu, they yelled 
the war-whoop, sj)read themselves to right and left, and opened a 
sharjD fire under cover of the trees. Gage's column wheeled 
deliberately into line, and tired several volleys with great steadi- 
ness against the now invisible assailants. Few of them were 
hurt ; the trees caught the shot, but the noise was deafening 
under the dense arches of the forest. 

The greater part of the Canadians "fled shamefully, crying 
^ Sauve qui pent !' '' ^ Volley followed volley, and at the third 
Beaujeu dropped dead. Gage's two cannon were now brought 
to bear, on which the Indians, like the Canadians, gave way in 
confusion, but did not, like them, abandon the field. The 
close scarlet ranks of the English were plainly to be seen through 
the trees and the smoke ; they were moving forward, cheering 
lustily, and shouting " God save the King \" Dumas, now chief 
in command, thought that all was lost. "I advanced," he 
says, ^^with the assurance that comes from despair, exciting by 
voice and gesture the few soldiers that remained. The fire of 
my platoon was so sharp that the enemy seemed astonished.'' 

The Indians, encouraged, began to rally. The French offi- 
cers who commanded them showed admirable courage and ad- 
dress ; and while Dumas and Ligneris, with the regulars and 
what was left of the Canadians, held the ground in front, the 
savage warriors, screeching their war cries, swarmed through 
the forest along both flanks of the English, hid behind trees, 
bushes, and fallen trunks, or crouched in gullies and ravines, 
and opened a deadly fire on the helpless soldiery, who, them- 
selves completely visible, could see no enemy, and wasted volley 
after volley on the impassive trees. The most destructive fire 
came from a hill on the English right, where the Indians lay in 
multitudes, firing from their lurking-places on the living target 

2. Sauve qui peut — "Save himself who can." 



BR ADD CK 'S DEFEA T. 53 

below. But the invisible death was everywhere, in front, flank, 
and rear. The British cheer was heard no more. The troops 
broke their ranks and huddled together in a bewildered mass, 
shrinking from the bullets that cut them down by scores. 

When Braddock heard the firing in the front, he pushed 
forward with the main body to the support of Gage, leaving 
four hundred men in the rear, under Sir Peter Halket, to guard 
the baggage. At the moment of his arrival Gage^s soldiers had 
abandoned their two cannon, and were falling back to escape 
the concentrated fire of the Indians. Meeting the advancing 
troops, they tried to find cover behind them. This threw the 
whole into confusion. The men of the two regiments became 
mixed together ; and in a short time the entire force, except 
the Virginians and the troops left with Halket, were massed in 
several dense bodies within a small space of ground, facing 
some one way and some another, and all alike exposed without 
shelter to the bullets that pelted them like hail. Both men 
and officers were new to this blind and frightful warfare of the 
savage in his native woods. 

To charge the Indians in their hiding-places would have 
been useless. They would have eluded pursuit with the agility 
of wildcats, and swarmed back, like angry hornets, the moment 
that it ceased. The Virginians -alone were equal to the emer- 
gency. Fighting behind trees like the Indians themselves, they 
might have held the enemy in check till order could be restored, 
had not Braddock, furious at a proceeding that shocked all his /y 
ideas of courage and discipline, ordered them, with oaths, to 
form into line. A body of them under Captain Waggoner 
made a dash for a fallen tree lying in the woods, far out towards 
the lurking-places of the Indians, and, crouching behind the 
huge trunk, opened fire ; but the regulars, seeing the smoke 
among the bushes, mistook their best friends for the enemy, 
shot at them from behind, killed many, and forced the rest to 
return. A few of the regulars also tried in their clumsy way to 
fight behind trees ; but Braddock beat them with his sword, and 



54 BRADD CK 'S DEFEA T. 

compelled them to stand with the rest, an open mark for the 
Indians. 

The panic increased ; the soldiers crowded together, and the 
bullets spent themselves in a mass of human bodies. Com- 
mands, entreaties, and threats were lost upon them. ^' We 
would fight," some of them answered, *'if we could see any- 
body to fight with." Nothing was visible but puffs of smoke. 
Officers and men who had stood all the afternoon under fire 
afterwards declared that they could not be sure they had seen 
a single Indian. 

Braddock ordered Lieutenant Colonel Burton to attack the 
hill where the puffs of smoke were thickest, and the bullets 
most deadly. With infinite difficulty that brave officer induced 
a hundred men to follow him ; but he was soon disabled by a 
wound, and they all faced about. The artillerymen stood for 
some time by their guns, which did great damage to the trees 
and little to the enemy. 

The mob of soldiers, stupefied with terror, stood panting, 
their foreheads beaded with sweat, loading and firing mechanic- 
ally, sometimes into the air, sometimes among their own com- 
rades, many of whom they killed. The ground, strewn with 
dead and wounded men, the bounding of maddened horses, the 
clatter and roar of musketry and cannon, mixed with the spite- 
ful report of rifles and the yells that rose from the indefatigable 
throats of six hundred unseen savages, formed a chaos of an- 
guish and terror scarcely paralleled even in Indian war. *• I can- 
not describe the horrors of that scene," one of Braddock's 
officers wrote three weeks after; *^^no pen could do it. The 
yell of the Indians is fresh on my ear, and the terrific sound will 
haunt me till the hour of my dissolution." 

Braddock showed a furious intrepidity. Mounted on horse- 
back, he dashed to and fro, storming like a madman. Four 
horses were sliot under him, and he mounted a fifth. W^ashing- 
ton seconded his chief with equal courage ; he too no doubt 
using strong language, for he did not measure words when the 
fit was on him. He escaped as by miracle. Two horses were 



BR ADD GK \S DEFEA T. 55 

iilled under him, and four bullets tore his clothes. The con- 
iuct of the British officers was above praise. Nothing could 
surpass their undaunted self-devotion ; and in their vain at- 
tempts to lead on the men, the havoc among them was fright- 
ful. Sir Peter Halket was shot dead. His son, a lieutenant in 
lis regiment, stooping to raise the body of his father, was shot 
lead in turn. Young Shirley, Braddock^s secretary, was pierced 
through the brain. Orme and Morris, his aides-de-camp, Sin- 
3lair, the quartermaster-general. Gates and Gage, both after- ^ 
fvards conspicuous on opposite sides in the War of the Revolu- 
tion, and Gladwin, who, eight years later, defended Detroit 
igainst Pontiac, were all wounded. Of eighty-six officers, sixty- 
bhree were killed or disabled ; while out of thirteen hundred 
md seventy-three non-commissioned officers and privates, only 
[our hundred and fifty-nine came off unharmed. 

Braddock saw that all was lost. To save the wreck of his 
force from annihilation, he at last commanded a retreat ; and as 
he and such of his officers as were left strove to withdraw the 
half -frenzied crew in some semblance of order, a bullet struck 
him down. The gallant bulldog fell from his horse, shot 
through the arm into the lungs. It is said, though on evidence 
3f no weight, that the bullet came from one of his own men. 
Be this as it may, there he lay among the bushes, bleeding, 
gasping, unable even to curse. He demanded to be left where 
he was. Captain Stewart and another provincial bore him be- 
tween them to the rear. 

It was about this time that the mob of soldiers, having been 
three hours under fire, and having spent their ammunition, 
broke away in a blind frenzy, rushed back towards the ford, 
" and when/^ says Washington, " we endeavored to rally them, 
it was with as much success as if we had attempted to stop the 
wild bears of the mountains.^' They dashed across, helter-skel- 
ter, plunging through the water to the farther bank, leaving 
wounded comrades, cannon, baggage, the military chest, and 
the GeneraPs papers, a prey to the Indians. About fifty of 
these followed to the edge of the river. Dumas and Ligneris, 



56 BRABDOCK'S DEFEAT. 

who had now only about twenty Frenchmen with them, made 
no attempt to pursue, and went back to the fort, because, says 
Contrecoeur, so many of the Canadians had '^retired at the first 
firCo'''' The field, abandoned to the savages, was a pandemonium 
of pillage and murder. 

James Smith, the young prisoner at Fort Diiquesne, had 
passed a day of suspense, waiting the result. " In the afternoon 
I again observed a great noise and commotion in the fort, and, 
though at that time I could not understand French, I found it 
was the voice of joy and triumph, and feared that they had re- 
ceived what I called bad news. I had observed some of the old- 
country soldiers speak Dutch; as I spoke Dutch, I went to one 
of them and asked him what was the news. He told me that 
a runner had just arrived who said that Braddock would cer- 
tainly be defeated; that the Indians and French had surrounded 
him, and were concealed behind trees and in gullies, and kept a 
constant fire upon the English; and that they saw the English 
falling in heaps ; and if they did not take the river, which was 
the only gap, and make their escape, there would not be one 
man left alive before sundown. 

^* Some time after this, I heard a number of scalp-halloos, and 
saw a company of Indians and French coming in. I observed 
they had a great number of bloody scalps, grenadiers^ caps, 
British canteens, bayonets, etc., with them. They brought the 
news that Braddock was defeated. After that another company 
came in, which appeared to be about one hundred, and chiefly 
Indians; and it seemed to me that almost every one of this com- 
pany was carrying scalps. After this came another company 
with a number of wagon-horses, and also a great many scalps. 
Those that were coming in and those that had arrived kept up a 
constant firing of small-arms, and also the great guns in the fort, 
which were accompanied with the most hideous shouts and yells 
from all quarters, so that it aj)peared to me as though the in- 
fernal regions had broke loose. 

" About sundown I beheld a small party coming in with about 
a dozen prisoners, stripped naked, with their hands tied behind 



BRADDOOK'S DEFSAT. 57 

their backs and their faces and part of their bodies blacked; 
these prisoners they burned to death on the bank of the Alle- 
ghany River, opposite the fort. I stood on the fort wall until I 
beheld them begin to burn one of these men; they had him 
tied to a stake, and kept touching him with firebrands, red- 
hot irons, etc., and he screaming in a most doleful manner, the 
Indians in the meantime yelling like infernal spirits. As this 
scene appeared too shocking for me to behold, I retired to my 
lodging, both sore and sorry. When I came into my lodgings I 
saw RusseFs Seven SeDiwns, which they had brought from the 
field of battle, which a Frenchman made a present of to me.''^ 

The loss of the French was slight, but fell chiefly on the 
officers, three of whom were killed, and four wounded. Of the 
regular soldiers, all but four escaped untouched. The Cana- 
dians suffered still less, in proportion to their numbers, only five 
of them being hurt. The Indians, who won the victory, bore 
the principal loss. Of those from Canada, twenty-seven were 
killed and wounded; while the casualties among the Western 
tribes are not reported. All of these last went off the next 
morning with their plunder and scalps, leaving Contrecoeur in 
great auxiety lest the remnant of Braddock's troops, re-enforced 
by the division under Dunbar, should attack him again. His 
doubts would have vanished had he known the condition of his 
defeated enemy. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Death of Braddock. The In^diak War. 

Ii^ the pain and languor of a mortal wound, Braddock showed 
unflinching resolution. His bearers stopped with him at a fa- 
vorable spot beyond the Monongahela; and here he hoped to 



5$ BUADD CK 'S DEFEA T. 

maintain his position till the arrival of Dunbar.' By the efforts 
of the officers about a hundred men were collected around him; 
but to keep them there was impossible. Within an hour they 
abandoned him, and fled like the rest. Gage, however, suc- 
ceeded in rallying about eighty beyond the other fording-place; 
and Washington, on an order from Braddock, spurred his jaded 
horse towards the camp of Dunbar to demand wagons, provis- 
ions, and hospital stores. 

Fright overcame fatigue. The fugitives toiled on all night, 
pursued by specters of horror and despair; hearing still the war- 
whoops and the shrieks ; possessed with the one thought of 
escape from this wilderness of death. In the morning some 
order was restored. Braddock was placed on a horse; then, the 
pain being insufferable, he was carried on a litter. Captain Orme 
having bribed the carriers by the promise of a guinea and a bot- 
tle of rum apiece. Early in the succeeding night, such as had 
not fainted on the way reached the deserted farm of Gist. Here 
they met wagons and provisions, with a detachment of soldiers 
sent by Dunbar, whose camp was six miles farther on; and Brad- 
dock ordered them to go to the relief of the stragglers left behind. 

At noon of that day a number of wagoners and packhorse- 
drivers had come to Dunbar's camp with wild tidings of rout and 
ruin. More fugitives followed; and soon after a wounded officer 
was brought in upon a sheet. The drums beat to arms. The 
camp was in commotion; and many soldiers and teamsters took to 
flight, in spite of the sentinels, who tried in vain to stop them. 

There was a still more disgraceful scene on the next day, 
after Braddock, with the wreck of his force, had arrived. 
Orders were given to destroy such of the wagons, stores, and 
ammunition as could not be carried back at once to Fort Cum- 
berland. Whether Dunbar or the dying General gave these 

1. Dunbar, Thomas, British officer. Joined Braddock's expedition and, 
when Braddock pressed on to the attack on Fort Du Quesne, was left in 
cbarj^^e of the residue of the army. After tlie defeat Dunbar destroyed his 
artillery, burned stores and ba^^gage worth £100,000, and ignominiously 
retreated. 



)rders is not clear ; but it is certain that they were executed 
^ith shameful alacrit}^ More than a hundred wagons were 
turned ; cannon, coehorns, and shells were burst or buried ; 
Darrels of gunpowder were staved, and the contents thrown into 
I brook ; provisions were scattered through the woods and 
iwamps. Then the whole command began its retreat over the 
nountains to Fort Cumberland, sixty miles distant. This pro- 
ceeding, for which, in view of the condition of Braddock, Dun- 
jar must be held answerable, excited the utmost indignation 
iniong the colonists. If he could not advance, they thought, 
le might at least have fortified himself and held his ground till 
:he provinces could send him help ; thus covering the frontier, 
ind holding French war-parties in check. 

Braddock^s last moment was near. Orme, who, though him- 
self severely wounded, was with him till his death, told Frank- 
in that he was totally silent all the first day, and at night said 
)nly, '^ Yfho would have thought it T^ that all the next day he 
ivas again silent, till at last he muttered, '^We shall better 
k:now how to deal with them another time/' and died a few 
minutes after. He had nevertheless found breath to give orders 
it Gist's for the succor of the men who had dropped on the road. 
[t is said, too, that in his last hours ^Mie could not bear the 
sight of a red coat," but murmured praises of '^ the blues," cr 
'Virginians, and said that he hoped he should live to reward 
;hem. He died at about eight o'clock in the evening of Sunday, 
;he thirteenth. Dunbar had begun his retreat that morning, and 
vas then encamped near the Great Meadows. On Monday the 
lead commander was buried in the road ; and men, horses, and 
ivagons passed over his grave, effacing every sign of it, lest the 
[ndians should find and mutilate the body.* 

Colonel James Innes, commanding at Fort Cumberland, 
^here a crowd of invalids with soldiers' wives and other women 
lad been left when the expedition marched, heard of the defeat, 

* " Reproach spared him not, even when in his grave. The failure of the 
expedition was attributed, both in England and America, to his obstinacy, 



\y 



onl}^ two days after it hap2:)ened, from a wagoner who had fled 
from the field on horseback. He at once sent a note of six lines 
to Lord Fairfax : '^ ^'^ I have this moment received the most mel- 
ancholy news of the defeat of our troops, the General killed, 
and numbers of our officers ; our whole artillery taken. In 
short, the account I have received is so very bad, that as, please 
God, I intend to make a stand here, 't is highly necessary to 
raise the militia everywhere to defend the frontiers.'^ A boy 
whom he sent out on horseback met more fugitives, and came 
back on the fourteenth with reports as vague and disheartening 
as the first. Innes sent them to Dinwiddle. Some days after, 
Dunbar and his train arrived in miserable disorder, and Fort 
Cumberland was tui^ned into a hospital for the shattered frag- 
ments of a routed and ruined army. 

The evil tidings quickly reached Philadelphia, where such 
confidence had prevailed that certain over-zealous persons had 
begun to collect money for fireworks to celebrate the victory. 
Two of these, brother physicians named Bond, came to Frank- 
lin and asked him to subscribe ; but the sage looked doubtful. 
He reminded tliem that war is always uncertain ; and the sub- 
scription was deferred. The Governor laid the news of the dis- 
aster before his Council, telling them at the same time that his 
opponents in the Assembly would not believe it, and had in- 
sulted him in the street for giving it currency. 

his techniciil pedantry, and his military conceit He had been contiunally 
warned to be on his guard. Still his dauntless conduct on the field of bat- 
tle shows him to have been a man of fearless spirit; and he was universally 
allowed to be an accomplished disciplinarian. His melancholy end, too, 
disarms censure of its asperity. Whatever may have been his faults and 
errors, he in a manner expiated them by the hardest lot that can befall a 
brave soldier ambitious of renown— an unhonorcd grave in a strange land, 
a memory clouded by misfortune, and a name forever coupled with de- 
feat "—Irving's Life of WasMngton. 

2. Lord Fairfax had resided in Virginia for a long time, and was one of 
tlie largest land-owners in that colony. He was very prominent in affairs 
of state. He was a strong friend to Washington, and did much to forward 
bis interests when he was a young man. 



BRABDOCK'S DEFEAT. . 61 

Dinwiddie remained tranquil at Williamsburg, sure that all 
would go well. The brief note of Innes, forwarded by Lord 
Fairfax, first disturbed, his dream of triumph ; but on second 
thought he took comfort. ^^ I am willing to think that account 
was from a deserter who, in a great panic, represented what his 
fears suggested. I wait with impatience for another express 
from Fort Cumberland, which I expect will greatly contradict 
the former/^ The news got abroad, and the slaves showed signs 
of excitement. "The villiany of the negroes on any emergency 
is what I always feared," continues the Governor. " An example 
of one or two at first may prevent these creatures entering into 
combinations and wicked designs." And he wrote to Lord Hali- 
fax :^ *^The negro slaves have been very audacious on the news 
of defeat on the Ohio. These poor creatures imagine the 
French will give them their freedom. We have too many here ; 
but I hope we shall be able to keep them in proper subjection." 

Suspense grew intolerable. *^ It^s monstrous they should be so 
tardy and dilatory in sending down any farther account." He 
sent Major Colin Campbell for news ; when, a day or two 
later, a courier brought him two letters, one from Orme, and 
the other from Washington, both written at Fort Cumberland 
on the eighteenth. The letter of Orme began thus : ^^ My dear 
Governor, I am so extremely ill in bed with the wound I have 
received that I am under the necessity of employing my friend 
Captain Dobson as my scribe." Then he told the wretched 
story of defeat and humiliation. '^The officers were absolutely 
sacrificed by their unparalleled good behavior ; advancing before 
their men sometimes in bodies, and sometimes separately, hoping 
by such an example to engage the soldiers to follow them; but to no 
purpose. Poor Shirley was shot through the head. Captain Morris 
very much wounded. Mr. Washington had two horses shot under 
him, and his clothes shot through in several places ; behaving 
the whole time with the greatest courage and resolution." 



3. Lord Halifax came from England with Braddock, and was one of the 
under officers in his command. 



62 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



Washington wrote more briefly, saying that, as Orme was 
giving a full account of the affair, it was needless for him to 
repeat it. Like many others in the fight, he greatly underrated 
the force of the enemy, which he placed at three hundred, or 
about a third of the actual number, — a natural error, as most of 
the assailants were invisible. " Our poor Virginians behaved 
like men, and died like soldiers ; for I believe that out of three 
companies that were there that day, scarce thirty were left alive. 
Captain Peronney and all his officers down to a corporal were 
killed. Captain Poison shared almost as hard a fate, for only 
one of his escaped. In short, the dastardly behavior of the 
English soldiers exposed all those who were inclined to do their 
duty to almost certain death. It is imagined ( I believe with 
great justice too ) that two thirds of both killed and wounded 
received their shots from our own cowardly dogs of soldiers, who 
gathered themselves into a body, contrary to orders, ten and 
twelve deep, would then level, fire, and shoot down the men 
before them.^^ 

To Orme, Dinwiddle replied : ''^I read your letter with tears 
in my eyes ; but it gave me much pleasure to see your name at 
the bottom, and more so when I observed by the postscript that 
your wound is not dangerous. But pray, dear sir, is it not 
possible by a second attempt to retrieve the great loss we have 
sustained ? I presume the GeneraFs chariot is at the fort. In it 
you may come here, and my house is heartily at your command. 
Pray take care of your valuable health ; keep your spirits up, and 
I doubt not of your recovery. My wife and girls join me in 
most sincere respects and joy at your being so well, and I always 
am, with great truth, dear friend, your affectionate, humble 
servant." 

To Washington he is less effusive, though he had known him 
much longer. He begins, it is true, ^' Dear Washington," and 
congratulates him on his escape ; but soon grows formal and asks : 
''Pray, sir, with the number of them remaining, is there no 
possibility of doing something on the other side of the mountains 
before the winter months ? Surely you must mistake, Colonel 



BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 63 

Dunbar will not march to winter-quarters in the middle of 
summer, and leave the frontiers exposed to the invasions of the 
enemy ! No ; he is a better officer, and I have a different opinion 
of him. I sincerely wish you health and happiness, and am, 
with great respect, sir, your obedient, humble servant/^ 

Washington's letter had contained the astonishing announce- 
ment that Dunbar meant to abandon the frontier and march to 
Philadelphia. Dinwiddle, much disturbed, at once wrote to that 
officer, though without betraying any knowledge of his intention. 
*' Sir, the melancholy account of the defeat of our forces gave me 
a sensible and real concern"— on which he enlarges for a while ; 
then suddenly changes style : ^' Dear Colonel, is there no method 
left to retrieve the dishonor done to the British arms ? As you 
now command all the forces that remain, are you not able, after 
a proper refreshment of your men, to make a second attempt ? 
You have four months now to come of the best weather of the 
year for such an expedition. What a fine field for honor will 
Colonel Dunbar have to confirm and establish his character as a 
brave officer. '^ Then, after suggesting plans of operation, and 
entering into much detail, the fervid Governor concludes : ''It 
gives me great pleasure that under our great loss and misfortunes 
the command • devolves on an officer of so great military judg- 
ment and established character. With my sincere respect and 
hearty wishes for success to all your proceedings, I am, worthy 
sir, your most obedient, humble servant. '^ 

Exhortation and flattery were lost on Dunbar. Dinwiddie 
received from him in reply a short, dry note, dated on the first of 
August, and acquainting him that he should march for Phila- 
delphia on the second. This, in fact, he did, leaving the fort to 
be defended by invalids and a few Virginians. " I acknowledge," 
says Dinwiddie, ''I was not brought up to arms ; but I think 
common sense would have prevailed not to leave the frontiers 
exposed after having opened a road over the mountains to the 
Ohio, by which the enemy can the more easily invade us. . . . 
Your great colonel," he writes to Orme, ''is gone to a peaceful 
colony, and left our frontiers open. . . . The whole conduct of 



64 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 

Colonel Dunbar appears to me monstrous. ... To march off all 
the regulars, and leave the fort and frontiers to be defended by 
four hundred sick and wounded, and the poor remains of our 
provincial forces, appears to me absurd.^' 

He found some comfort from the burgesses,* who gave him 
forty thousand pounds, and would, he thinks, have given a 
hundred thousand if another attempt against Fort Duquesne 
had been set afoot. Shirley, too, whom the death of Braddock 
had made commander-in-chief, approved the Governor's plan of 
renewing offensive operations, and instructed Dunbar to that 
effect ; ordering him, however, should' they j^rove impracticable, 
to march for Albany in aid of the Niagara expedition. The 
order found him safe in Philadelphia. Here he lingered for a 
while ; then marched to join the northern army, moving at a 
pace which made it certain that he could not arrive in time to 
be of the least use. 

The calamities of this disgraceful rout did not cease with the 
loss of a few hundred soldiers on the field of battle; for it 
brought upon the provinces all the miseries of an Indian war. 
Those among the tribes who had thus far stood neutral, waver- 
ing between the French and English, now hesitated no longer. 
Many of them had been disgusted by the contemptuous beha- 
vior of Braddock. All had learned to despise the courage of 
the English, and to regard their own prowess with unbounded 
complacency. It is not in Indian nature to stand quiet in the 
midst of war ; and the defeat of Braddock was a signal for the 
western savages to snatch their tomahawks and assail the Eng- 
lish settlements with one accord, murdering and pillaging with 
ruthless fury, and turning the frontier of Pennsylvania and Vir- 
ginia into one wide scene of havoc and desolation. 

" General Braddock being mortally wounded at the battle of Mononga- 
hela, died on the third uiglit. He was buried in his cloak Ihe same night 
iu the road, to elude the search of the Indians. Washiugton, on the testi- 
mony of an old soldier, read the funeral service over his remains, by the 
light of a torch. Faithful to his commauder while he lived, he would not 
suffer him to want the customary rites of religion when dead." 

4. Burgesses.— A member representing a corporate town in Virginia 
was formcM-ly called a burgess, and the whole assembly was known as the 



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